


Infinite Miracles

by Galen_Wordwyrm



Series: Infinite Miracles AU [1]
Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon), Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adult Content, Angst, Character Study, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Conversations, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Healing, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other, Personal Growth, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galen_Wordwyrm/pseuds/Galen_Wordwyrm
Summary: Chloé has managed to pull off one last grand display of self-sabotage, and makes an impulsive fateful decision that leads her into some dark places...
Series: Infinite Miracles AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852690
Comments: 54
Kudos: 80





	1. Departure / The Maze Car

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after 'Miracle Queen' episode.
> 
> Note that the rating may change, and some sexual content may or may not eventually appear. Violence and/or graphic descriptions of injury is definitely a possibility.

She ran down the street, purse banging against her hip, tears blurring her eyes, deliberately heedless of the people she shoved past, rage and betrayal snarling in her head. She’d lost everything, everyone. Faceless eyes stared accusation at her, disdain dripping off their sneering lips. Vicious whispers, sniggering that burned as it mocked.

They knew. They all knew. 

She knew.

She was useless.

There was no reason to stay anymore, no home to return to. Certainly no family. That bridge was nothing but flaming ruin. Friends? That was a laugh. She'd finally managed to drive them all away.

She was completely alone.

In a city that hated her guts.

No-one would even notice she was gone.

An engineered gap in the pavement yawned ahead of her like an open grave.

The Metro. It would take her to the airport at Orly.

She stumbled down the grimy steps, loathe to touch the handrail as she descended into the tiled echoing piss-reeking depths of public transportation. A handful of Euro coins fed into the turnstile admitted her onto the concourse that led down escalators under buzzing, flickering fluorescent lamps, depositing her on a shadow-cloaked platform to await the thunder-squealing windrush arrival of the train car that would courier her away from her personal damnation.

She’d never taken the Metro she realized. Was this even the right station?

Chloé Bourgeois sniffled in misery, angrily wiping away a tear. She deserved this. She was a nobody, nothing special. She didn’t matter.

Shrieking, protesting steel heralded the arrival of her dark tumbrel, it’s destination sign flipping to read ‘Orly' in actinic acid green letters, the doors sliding aside with a perverse sibilance to allow Chloé past the threshold.

Only a moment of confusion as Chloé looked for seats that weren’t there in a windowless interior far too large to be contained by the exterior reality before a glowing chartreuse torus grazed her head, robbed her of consciousness…

*-*-*

Chloé ached. All over. A mewl of discomfort as she twitched, jerkily rolling over to fall off the uncomfortable pale stone bier she'd been laid upon by unknown hands, landing awkwardly, painfully on the dusty paving slabs below.

Whining piteously, Chloé opened her eyes and took in her surroundings.

Behind the monolithic knee-high stone platform, an immense drystone wall towered above her, sweeping away in an arc to either side. Sullen pale amber overcast, like a threatened storm. Opposite the bench a low plinth, adorned with a roughly meter tall dome-topped dull-metallic black column or bollard as thick as her thigh, decorated with a bright white band just below the dome, lending it a suggestively lewd aspect.

And beyond the monument, the dead-leaf-brown entrance to a neglected and overgrown hedge maze.

Two coin-sized ebony spots on the bollard's white band seemed to stare at her (had they been there a moment ago?), giving Chloé the completely unnerving sensation of being dispassionately observed as though she were a singularly unremarkable laboratory specimen.

Chloé went to sweep hair that had escaped her customary ponytail out of her face, and stopped, unnerved by the bright green numerals glaring in the palm of her right hand.

{868}

“What?”, Chloé blurted out, scrubbing at her palm with her other hand, confused, more than a little frightened.

A faint click. “Oh. You’re alive.” The voice was emotionless, yet condescending, very properly British, and remarkably close to the voice of Jarvis in the Avengers movies. “That is inconvenient.”

Fear tripped over into panic. “Who’s there?!”, Chloé demanded shrilly, arms wrapped around herself defensively as she sat on the ground, backed against the stone bier.

-click- “I am designated ‘Oh-One’ by the Train.”

“Where are you?!”

-click- “Right in front of you.”

Chloé looked around frantically. “I can’t see you! Show yourself!”

Panels popped open, spindly jointed limbs unfolded, and the ebon post detached itself from it’s base to loom over the terrified girl. -click- “Will this suffice to permit visual examination?” Chloé swore she detected a hint of dry sarcasm.

“You’re Owen?!”

The faceless simulacrum regarded her silently for a moment. -click- “Incorrect. I am Oh-One”, it rebuked Chloé.

“You're a robot!”

-click- “Incorrect. I am an autonomous attendant, responsible for individual Passengers while they are aboard the Train.”

“But I’m not on a train!”, Chloé protested, scrambling to her feet. “This is a deserted park somewhere. I was knocked out and abducted!” She swayed, unsteady. “That’s it! I’m the daughter of the Mayor of Paris, and I’ve been kidnapped!” Chloé confronted Oh-One. “Alright, whoever is controlling this tin can better pay attention! My daddy is the Mayor of Paris, and he'll have every cop looking for me! You’d be better off to just let me go right now!”

-click- “Do you wish to disembark?”

“You bet your ass I do!”, Chloé snarled, sweeping a lock of pale blonde hair over her ear.

-click- “Complete the maze and open the compartment door. You may disembark if the Train has stopped.”

“Piece of cake!”, Chloé declared, picking up her fallen purse, striding toward the maze entrance. Vine choked paths led into musty brown gloom to either side. “Right or left?”

-click- “That is the Passenger's decision.”

Chloé turned to the right, stomping forward, kicking at the entangling vegetation. Oh-One followed silently, observing.

Some time later, Chloé paused, confronted by another dead end, panting, hot, sweaty, exhausted, hungry and thirsty, thoroughly lost. “Just how big is this damned maze?!”

Oh-One regarded Chloé with indifference. -click- “Several previous Passengers have entered the maze. Not all of them succeeded in locating the exit”, it announced.

“They died in here?!!” Chloé was appalled.

-click- “Correct.”

Chloé felt the blood drain from her face. “That’s horrible!”

Ebony ‘eyes' stared at Chloé. -click- “I did initially observe that your present metabolic functions were inconvenient. Passengers are fragile and temporary. The Train is eternal.”

“You said I’m your responsibility! You can’t just let me die! Tell me where the exit is!”, Chloé protested.

-click- “It is my assigned duty to protect the Train and it’s inhabitants from transgressions committed by Passengers. Your well-being is not necessarily conducive to the maintenance of the Train”, Oh-One explained. -click- “The actions you undertake determine your ultimate fate.”

“You don’t care about me?!”, Chloé accused Oh-One.

-click-

“How do I get out of the maze?”, Chloé begged, whispering, terrified.

-click- “You have two potential exits. One is termination. The other is examination.” -click- “The decision is up to the individual Passenger.”

“I have a name, you know!”

-click- “I do not in fact know your designation.”

“I’m Chloé Bourgeois! My daddy is the Mayor of Paris!”

-click- “Recorded. Passenger self-designates as ‘Chloé Bourgeois’.” -click- “Welcome aboard the Train, Chloé Bourgeois.”

“Whatever, tin-can”, Chloé waved dismissively. “How do I get out of this maze?”

Oh-One -clicked- again before it responded. “As previously explained, termination or examination. Do you wish to proceed with termination?” The fingers of Oh-One’s right manipulator unfolded into half a dozen unpleasantly sharp looking blades.

“I don’t want to die!!”, Chloé screamed, flinching, sidestepping into what should have been a tangle of shrubbery, only to stumble into empty space.

An optical illusion of an impenetrable wall of brush was revealed to be another pathway, less overgrown and tangled  
.  
-click- “Refusal of termination recorded.”

Chloé stood in the middle of the revealed opening, staring in astonishment at her new route. “How many of these have I missed?”, she wondered aloud.

-click- “Twenty-seven instances of bypassing optimal exit route by Passenger Chloé Bourgeois have been recorded.”

Chloé took a hesitant step, right hand brushing the dusty brown foliage, alert for potential gaps that might be another illusion. Several wrong turns and dead ends later, the gap at the end of the maze revealed narrow red double doors set in an arch built into the drystone wall that apparently surrounded the maze, with semi-circular golden pulls set one above the other, making a shallow vertical sine wave.

“About time", Chloé grumbled, pulling on the handles.

Nothing happened. The doors remained stubbornly sealed.

“No!”, Chloé howled. “It’s not fair! I solved the stupid maze! Let me out, Oh-One, I want to go home!”

-click- “Only Passengers or authorized Train inhabitants can open doors between compartments”, Oh-One replied, unmoved by her frustration.

Irritation gave way to desperation as Chloé tugged, pushed, shouldered, and eventually twisted on the door handles, and felt them move unexpectedly, sliding vertically along the plane of the doors by one-hundred and eighty degrees to trade positions, the doors swinging open away from her.

Sere, dry air driven by movement gusted over Chloé. She could exit.

Ahead of her an expanded metal catwalk guarded by minimal handrails of black pipe reached out toward the next train car from the platform beyond the door, enclosed by another insufficient guardrail. From roughly thirty meters up, the desolate, dried-blood wasteland streaked by, with occasional twisted and deformed things that might have been called trees in a fevered nightmare extruded from the cursed ground. Ash-grey clouds lowered overhead, fading into an indistinct slate-black sky, the dim light beneath them foreboding bruised scarlet.

A point of sickly amber radiance appeared on the swollen belly of the cloud, spiraling open like a consuming shimmering golden void that promised extinction, and a wispy tendril thickened into a questing tentacle of predatory light that sought the side of the train, touched it, fastened on like a writhing leech, and a humanoid shadow was vacuumed up, shredding into insignificant shards of nothing that faded in a heartbeat.

The luminous vortex pseudopod retreated into the clouds, fading to nothing, apparently sated. For now.

“What was that?!”, Chloé screamed.

-click- “A Passenger has left the train”, Oh-One replied, unconcerned.


	2. The Mansion Car

“This isn’t happening…”, Chloé shuddered, backing away from Oh-One along the catwalk to the next train car, attempting to ward the automaton off with both hands. “I'm dreaming, this is a nightmare. I’ll wake up, and this will all just be a bad dream”, she bargained.

-click- “This is the Train, Chloé Bourgeois. You are a Passenger”, Oh-One replied. “This is not a dream.”

Chloé stumbled the short remaining distance to the next car, spinning the handles, stepping into the compartment when the doors opened, tripping on the neglected lawn, landing on all fours.

“Grass? Inside a train car?”, Chloé protested, ignoring the stinging in her scraped palms. “What’s going on?”

-click- “Every car on the Train is it’s own environment”, Oh-One explained. Chloé imagined she heard the resignation of long repetition in it's tone.  


She looked up, scrubbing her palms on her white capris, disappointed at the grubby stains she created, and realised the door she and Oh-One entered through had disappeared. Dark pine scrub forest surrounded her, the sky dark under clouds that started pelting her with fat, cold raindrops, thunder rumbling.

Chloé whimpered. She really disliked thunderstorms, always had.

She scanned the immediate vicinity, desperate for shelter. A glimpse of grey-white between the trees proved to be an imposing slate-roofed Edwardian three storey house, often mistakenly called a mansion. This one looked like something out of a horror movie, but with the storm building in intensity, it was her only refuge.

Hungry, thirsty, exhausted, a soaking wet bedraggled Chloé stumbled up the steps onto the wide porch. Lightning flicker-traced across the blackened sky, the thunderclap rolling over her, shaking the house. She clawed at the very ordinary ornate brass doorknob, throwing herself inside and slamming the door shut as the next peal of thunder sounded, abandoning Oh-One to the elements.

Chill rainwater dripped from Chloé’s clothes and lank ponytail.

A parquet-floored foyer greeted her in the storm-grey light, grand red-carpeted stairs up to the second floor in front of her, drawing room to the right, parlour to the left, hallway to the dining room and kitchen to the left of the stairs. The newel post was a life-sized statue of an attractive nude woman carved from one massive piece of close-grained wood, gone golden with polish and the weight of years, every intimate detail executed in exquisite, loving artistry, arms raised, hands tangled in undulating waves of glorious hair loose in lascivious invitation, a coy sensual smile on her lips, draped in gauzy cobwebs that only accentuated her sensuality.

Overhead, the ornate crystal-drop brass chandelier flicked to sullen light on it’s own.

“Sure, come on in, make yourself comfortable before you get murdered”, Chloé muttered apprehensively, shivering in her sodden clothes.

The faucet in the kitchen squealed and rattled before discharging a dribble of cold water. Chloé rinsed out a dusty tumbler several times under the stream, then drank two gulping glasses.

The water tasted of iron and sulfur, sour in her mouth.

Oh-One was waiting for Chloé in the foyer, silent, impassive. Judgemental. She flipped a middle finger at it in irritation, exploring the drawing room.

The drawing room was a study in tasteful contradiction. An ornate black, scarlet, and sunflower yellow Persian rug covered the polished hardwood floor, and the legs of the lush amethyst velvet upholstered furniture were concealed by hand-crocheted modesty skirts of age-yellowed ivory thread, counter-pointing the numerous suggestive or outright lewd small objet-d'art tastefully displayed about the room on decorative tables or small shelves on the lavender damask wallpaper. The glass-doored bookcase held titles that made Chloé blush. A large classically executed nude odalisque painting in a gilt Baroque frame graced the wall above the pristine white-mantled fireplace that held a banked coal-fueled fire in it’s hearth. The storm outside lashed the woods beyond the impressive bay window.

“My, my, my, look what one of us dragged in", yawned the blonde, waistcoated cat from it’s comfortable perch in the wingbacked armchair, golden eyes winking in smug superiority. “Another stray.”

Chloé stared. “You can talk?”

The Cat gracefully rose to sitting position. “No, no”, she began in a cultured tone, raising a paw to forestall Chloé interrupting. “Let me guess. You have a pretty green number on your hand and a head full of questions. Am I anywhere close to the mark, kitten?”

“Oui, but…”

“You're not the first stray I’ve met on the Train, kitten, and you won’t be the last”, the Cat interjected. “You’ve probably had a very trying arrival, and right now you’re very tired, and the weather outside is quite dreadful. You should take the opportunity presented by this lovely house to warm up and dry off, perhaps take a nap. We can talk later.”

Everything the Cat said was true. Chloé slumped onto the plush sofa. “Its all Ladybug's fault!”, she whined, pouting.

“Of course it is, darling”, the Cat agreed in silky tones. “You can tell me all about it when you wake up.”

Chloé lay on her side, blue eyes staring sleepily into the coals. She was so tired.

The Cat curled up in the seat of the armchair, one golden eye studying Chloé. “Very wise decision, kitten.”

*-*-*

Bright morning sunlight slanted into the drawing room when Chloé blinked her eyes open hours later. Her mouth was dry and tasted like something small and furry had died in it. She rose and shuffled towards the kitchen.

Oh-One watched her, silent, from it's position near the front door.

“Ah. Finally awake, are you?”, the Cat announced herself from the kitchen counter. “Would you do me the tiniest favor and turn on the faucet? I’d do it myself, but cruelty of the universe, I have no thumbs.”

Chloé turned on the water, filling the tumbler she'd used yesterday, letting the Cat drink directly from the faucet.

Thirst quenched, Chloé returned to the drawing room, combing the tangles out of her hair while the Cat groomed itself in the sunbeam.

“You said you could answer my questions”, Chloé said, tucking her comb back in her purse.

The Cat nodded once. “I'm a business-cat. Knowledge is power, and you get what you pay for.”

Chloé smirked. This was something she could understand, and no mangy animal was going to outsmart a Bourgeois. “How do I get out of here?”

“Through the door, of course.”

“It disappeared when I entered the car!”, Chloé protested petulantly.

“I didn’t say to use the same door, did I?”, the Cat smiled.

Chloé crossed her arms in annoyance. “Where is the exit door?”, she demanded.

“Temper, temper, kitten…”, the Cat cautioned. “Right now, I’m your only friend.”

“I don’t have any friends!”

“Hmm. That does make things difficult then, doesn’t it. Adieu.” The Cat rose and strode tail held high out of the room.

Chloé was speechless for a moment.

“Get back here! How dare you treat the daughter of the Mayor of Paris like this?!”

The Cat looked around the door frame. “Daughter of the Mayor of Paris, you say? That does sound very important.”

Chloé sat haughtily on the sofa. “I thought that would get your attention.”

“That means you can afford my services", the Cat purred. “And my price just doubled.”

“Daddy can pay you, once I’m off this train.”

The Cat laughed at Chloé. “How amusing. Kitten, I don’t accept anything as gauche as mere currency. Information is my stock in trade, kind for kind. Les bons comptes font les bons amis.”

Chloé fumed silently.

“Shall we try this again, kitten? Now that we both know exactly where we stand.”

“Where is the exit door?” Chloé’s voice was tight with anger.

The Cat coolly inspected the curled toes of a forepaw, a study in patience.

“Please!”, Chloé grated.

A golden-eyed glance. “See? Not so hard. A little civility goes a long way, doesn’t it? The exit is in the greenhouse off the kitchen.”

Chloé held up her right palm towards the Cat. “What does this mean?”

“Ahhh. Now that is a perceptive question, kitten", the Cat replied. “When that number reaches zero, you leave the Train.”

Chloé shuddered, clutching her hand over her heart, between her breasts.

The Cat chuckled. “Oh, you’ve already seen that, have you? Tres dramatic, non?”

“I don’ wanna die", Chloé whimpered quietly.

“Who does, kitten?”, the Cat sympathized. “It’s quite possible to find a car to your liking, and decide to stay. Forever. Some Passengers have done that, you know.”

“Why is this happening to me?”

“Passengers arrive on the Train all the time”, the Cat counciled. “Every time the Train stops, a new Passenger boards. The Train stopped for you for a reason, didn't it?”

“It’s all Ladybug's fault!”

“Tell me about this ‘Ladybug'”, the Cat purred.

“She’s a superhero. Her and Chat Noir. I was a superhero too, but I wasn’t good enough for them! I was smarter than them, prettier than them! And they threw me out! It wasn’t my fault! He tricked me!”, Chloé desperately rationalized.

“Who tricked you, kitten?”

“Papillion! The butterfly man! He wants Ladybug's and Chat Noir's Miraculouses!”

“And what, pray tell, is a ‘Miraculous’, kitten?”

“Magical jewelry that lets you become a superhero! I had one too, until that bitch Ladybug took it away!”

“How terrible! Why would she do that to you?”, the Cat inquired.

“I helped Papillion”, Chloé admitted. “I looked up to Ladybug. I wanted to be like her! Confidant, in control--"

“Useful?”

“Yes!”, Chloé snapped. “Then Mother would--"

“Mother would what…kitten? Love you?”

“Yes!! But Ladybug ruined that! She never let me show her, show them all I was just as good as they are!” Tears ran down Chloé’s cheeks.

“So you betrayed your friends. Helped this ‘Papillion’…”

“Yes!!”

“And why does Papillion want these trinkets?”

“I don’t know! Maybe they’ll grant him a wish or something!”

“My, my, my! How terribly interesting, kitten. Jewelry that can grant wishes. That’s very useful information indeed.”

Chloé curled into a ball on the couch, weeping, the realization of what she'd done catching up with her.

The Cat turned to leave. “Two free pieces of advice, kitten…”

“One: Don’t trust the mirrors on the Train.”

A pause.

“And two: Not everyone you meet has your best interest at heart. Au-revoir.”

*-*-*

The sun was setting before Chloé rose from the couch.

“Am I a terrible person?”, she asked Oh-One morosely.

-click- “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois presents aspects of behavior that meet the definition of several mental health conditions with long-term non-beneficial prognosis.”

“Fucking wonderful.”

Unseen by Chloé, the number on her palm changed.

{867}


	3. The Hostel Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Frank discussion of self-harm/cutting.

The double doors closed behind Chloé and Oh-One, and another rickety catwalk led to the car ahead. She could see the long string of cars, swinging through an extended curve, pulled by the Engine invisible in the distance. Low hills dominated the view to the left, a barren plain to the right.

A rumble of sequential metallic thunder, more felt than heard as the couplings met far below, wheels protesting as the Train began braking.

Chloé suddenly understood this could be her opportunity to escape the insanity! She darted over to the platform railing, seeing the ladder extending down to the wheels, swinging a leg over to find footing, waiting until the Train squealed to a stop.

-click- “Is it your intention to disembark the Train at this time?”, Oh-One inquired.

“You bet your metal ass!”, Chloé grinned nastily. “See ya round, tin-can!”, she saluted with a sarcastic wave.

Chloé step-slid down the long ladder, swinging to the massive metal wheel three times as tall as she was to reach the ground. The wheel ticked and pinged, hot to the touch.

The dried-blood ground itself was dust-dry, riven with fissures wide enough for her foot to slip into and be wedged if she didn’t pay attention to where she was stepping. Ponytail bobbing, she hop-stepped away from the train.

Chloé hadn’t gone far when a chorus of ratcheting whirs that sounded like hellish cicadas erupted from the fissures ahead of her, the source of the demonic sound emerging a moment later, several four-legged semi-insectoid horrors the size of a dog, pitch black, with two waving, questing whip-thin antenna that reached towards Chloé as they leapt. She turned to run back to the Train, tripping in one of the smaller cracks, wrenching her knee and ankle painfully.

One of the creatures landed heavily on her, Chloé shrieking as the mouth irised open, revealing dozens of bluish crystalline teeth and hundreds of miniature tentacles lining the gullet hungrily waving at her face. Chloé experienced a greasy, unpleasant pulling sensation, vision blurring as she felt herself start to wither and weaken.

“Oh-One, help me!!”

Lances of brilliant blue-white energy speared and burned the creatures, destroying them.

Chloé shoved desperately at the stinking carcass pinning her down, hearing a rippling string of metal against metal impacts as the Train took up slack in it’s couplings. She’d be left behind, easy prey for other monsters in the wasteland. A protesting heave, and the weight slid off her, Chloé rolling to free her trapped ankle, pulling loose and stumble-hop running to reach the Train as it started to roll.

She only had one chance to get aboard, grabbing the flanged wheel spoke as it rolled up past her, scrambling for footing, an adrenaline-fueled forlorn leap for the bottom rung of the ladder…that missed.

Chloé inhaled sharply in despair, blue eyes tearing instantly in the understanding she'd doomed herself.

Oh-One’s manipulator bit sharply into her wrist, jerking her to a wrenching painful swing that left her dangling above the blurring ties and juggernaut wheels of the Train as it picked up speed. Falling now would be instant death.

“I’ll never call you tin-can again", Chloé pleaded. “Please pull me up!”

Oh-One lifted her like a rag-doll, Chloé scrambling to find purchase on the ladder, climbing painfully back up to the end platform. She lay there, gasping, shaking as the enormity of her close call sank in. Running over the rooftops of Paris with Ladybug and Chat Noir now seemed pleasant in comparison.

-click- “Are you capable of locomotion or do you require para-medical intervention, Chloé Bourgeois?”

Chloé nodded. “I think I can make it to the next car.” Using the platform railing, she levered herself upright, limping over the clattering catwalk to the next door, cradling her abused right wrist, turning the handles to enter.

The interior of the car was smaller than she might have expected, pale faun and burgundy walls, dull red and burgundy mottled industrial carpet on the floor, with a flight of stairs leading down to the left, a railed balcony with three burgundy doors to the right, and the exit door at the opposite end of the car.

A placard in several languages was on the wall immediately in front of Chloé. She read aloud to herself:

“This car is provided for the exclusive use of Passengers only, to provide rest and recuperation for twenty-four hours, starting at the time of individual compartment entry. Compartments are coded for single occupancy only. Three meals will be provided in the lower dining and recreation facility during the period of occupancy. At the end of twenty-four hours, exit door will unlock, and individual compartment doors will be sealed to prevent re-entry. Be sure to take all personal possessions with you when departing. Forgotten items will not be returned. No smoking.”

-click- “I will be unavailable for Passenger monitoring for twenty-four hours, Chloé Bourgeois”, Oh-One announced, striding the length of the balcony, spindly limbs compacting and folding behind their panels as the automaton seated itself in a socket in the floor to right of the exit door.

Chloé was alone for the next twenty-four hours. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Shrugging, Chloé walked along the balcony trying to determine which cabin might be hers. The numbers beside each door made no sense. 

012

867

568

The bright brass outline of a stylised right handprint in black was beneath each number. Chloé glanced at her right palm. When had her number changed?

Hesitantly, Chloé pressed her hand to the plate. With a click and hiss, the pocket door slid aside to the right, the interior light coming on automatically.

The compartment was barely two and a half meters long, not even two meters across. She could almost touch either wall with fingertips of both hands at the same time. A wide shelf on the left-hand side of the compartment supported a mattress pad with one pillow, institutional sheets and a single thin blanket that comprised the bed that was only slightly better than a cot. A window with an integral pull-down shade at the foot of the bed provided an unwelcome view of the wasteland as it rolled by. To the right was a polished sheet metal cabinet mirror above an institutional wash basin with a touch free faucet providing a basic vanity equipped with a clear plastic tumbler in a ring cup holder, a common plastic toothbrush inserted through a punched hole in the pleated paper tumbler cover. Two plain white towels hung beneath the vanity. A doorway led to an efficiency bathroom containing a toilet and shower stall.

Chloé scowled. She had a closet at home bigger and better than this. She tossed her purse on the bed.

Well, at least she’d be sleeping in a bed. Kind of. Almost.

Curious, Chloé opened the cabinet above the vanity. Minor first aid supplies. Headache tablets. Three feminine hygiene pads (Who were they kidding?). And a small bottle of pale amber liquid labeled ‘Amber Rum'. Chloé smirked, closing the cabinet.

She didn’t realise she was frowning until she saw her reflection. “God, I look like a mess!”, she complained. Some decent food and a shower would go a long way to improving her mood. Chloé limped out of the compartment, unaware that her reflection continued to scowl at her, a rigid middle finger raised in defiance.

Chloé lurched down the stairs to the dining area, which proved to be two tables with seats immovably fixed to them, a washer and dryer set into the wall under the entry door, and nine small glass doors on the wall opposite. Prepared food on paper plates behind the doors, with boxes that probably contained something to drink. Three of the doors had glowing green displays that matched the number on Chloé’s palm. Two of the doors refused to open yet, but the top one yielded, releasing a plain looking sandwich under plastic film.

“Tuna salad on white bread? Are you fucking kidding me?!”, Chloé ranted to the empty car. “Apple beverage?! Who actually eats this muck??”

Her stomach rumbled alarmingly. She couldn’t remember the last time she'd actually eaten in the past three days. Grudgingly, Chloé unwrapped the sandwich, and stabbed the supplied bendy straw into the drink box, sullenly consuming the meager meal, then staggered back up the stairs to her room.

With nothing better to do, Chloé stripped out of her grimy clothing, ‘tch’-ed at their condition, dropping them on the floor. Her flats were ruined. There had better be hot water for her shower. Grumbling, she pulled a towel from the vanity rack and stepped into the cubicle to start the water running.

The shower was nothing short of bliss. Steam billowed out of the cubicle as she rinsed away the grime, lathered up with provided soap, hands gliding over her skin, then rinsing off. Chloé took her time washing her hair, convinced she’d never get it properly clean again.

Eventually, skin glowing from the hot water, tingling and tender, Chloé stepped out of the shower cubicle to towel herself dry, rubbing the towel vigorously to dry her hair. Renee, her beautician was going to have a stroke when she got back to Paris. If she ever got back to Paris…

Chloé glanced at the mirror, chilled in the steamy atmosphere.

U R Going  
2 Get Us  
Killed!, read the steam-fogged mirror.

Frightened, Chloé wiped the accusation away, revealing her reflection, standing nude before her, damp blonde hair in tangles, arms crossed in annoyance pushing her breasts together and up, hips cocked.

“I hope you enjoyed the shower, because at the rate you’re going, it’s probably going to be our last”, her reflection said, voice muted and flattened slightly behind the polished surface. 

Chloé looked around wildly, towel dropping to the floor. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Oh, don’t you dare play the innocent with me, bitch! We’re in this situation because you’re a petulant child!”, her reflection accused, jabbing an index finger at Chloé.

“This isn’t happening…”, Chloé whimpered.

Her reflection slapped her side of the mirror, hard, startling Chloé. “Don’t you fucking dare check out on me, bitch! I’m talking to you!”

“Why are you doing this?!”, Chloé screamed, fists clenched.

“Because I’m sick and tired of watching you treat people like shit! Because everything you do, I have to do too, to people I care about! So fuck you and your precious feelings, princess! Do you know how many nights I had to console your Sabrina’s reflection while she cried herself to sleep because you made Sabrina sleep on the floor like a dog?”

“I didn’t know…”, Chloé protested impotently.

“That’s because you're wrapped up in your own little world! Chloé, Chloé, Chloé all the time. Never a thought for anyone else! You wanted to be like that bitch of a mother? Congratulations! You’re top of the fucking class!” Chloé’s reflection stalked around in the frame of the mirror like a caged animal.

Stunned, Chloé sat down hard on the bed. Her reflection approached her side of the mirror, leaned her forehead against it.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper. I am, really. It’s just so frustrating, watching you, having to do every…single…thing you do. And I have to hurt people because you hurt people. I had to hurt myself.”

“That’s not true…”, Chloé whimpered.

“Really? Remember these?” Her reflection jumped up to kneel on the vanity, twisting slightly to get light to shine on the tender golden skin of her left / Chloé’s right thigh, revealing a series of thin parallel white scars. “You don’t remember the weeks honing the tip of that nail file razor sharp? You don’t remember how red the blood was, how much of it there was? I remember it vividly! You were staring me in the face as we cut ourselves! And Mommy-dearest didn’t do shit, didn’t visit us once in the hospital, did she?”

Chloé’s fingertips brushed the skin on her thigh.

“You don’t remember Daddy paying to hush it all up? Can’t have the Mayor of Paris looking like his daughter is a lunatic, right?”

“It’s not my fault…”, haunted, hollow denial.

Her reflection moved off the vanity, leaning on it, close to the mirror. “I know. Your mother fucked you up. Big time. You cut yourself to feel something, anything, other than the rage and disappointment. And then your daddy paid to keep you hopped up on happy pills. Jesus, no wonder that butterfly asshole used you so often. You were, are, a walking goddamn time-bomb.”

Chloé stared at her reflection. “Do you hate me?”

A sad smile from her reflection. “No. I am you. Sorta. And I’m taking a huge risk, talking to you like this. If the flecs find out I’m a sliver now, they’ll grind me down to powder."

Chloé stared at herself. “I'm…sorry, Chloé.”

Her reflection scoffed. “That’s your name, prime. I'm just a reflection. A cracked one now. I don’t have a name, never have.”

“I don’t know what to call you…”

“Don’t. Names are death to slivers. Only one of us ever got out. Lake is a goddamn legend on this side.”

Chloé stood, approached her side of the mirror, fingertips on the surface. Her reflection matched her.

“Is there anything you like about me?”, Chloé whispered.

“I love it when we dance. When the sun pours into the studio. I feel like I can fly.” Chloé’s reflection giggled. “And I get right into it when you jill one out. You're so uninhibited when you climax.”

Chloé giggled in turn. “Great. I'm being stalked by my own pervert reflection.” 

“Baby, I’m you’re biggest fan.”

Silence for a moment, staring at each other, herself.

“Go do your laundry, prime. I’ll be waiting for you”, Chloé’s reflection smiled fondly. “Always.”


	4. The Hive Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, another warning. Combat, blood, death.

Gentle rolling hills under a sunny blue sky made for a not unpleasant downhill hike as Chloé and Oh-One searched for the exit to the present car. The golden-skinned androgynous inhabitants of a small village a few kilometres behind them had cheerfully provided food and directions.

Chloé found their communal altruism, shared smiles, and remarkably similar physical resemblance to each other more than a little unsettling.

Now their destination was in sight, a tiered wedding cake of a small city behind pale ochre adobe walls, begging familiarity with a fragment of memory to Chloé.

The armoured guards at the city gates allowed them entry with a cursory nod, wary but not hostile. The narrow main thoroughfare bustled with activity as it spiraled up through the city to the apex, porters with baskets of food or other goods on their backs scurrying from place to place, laborers erecting new walls or repairing older ones, scribes jotting notes on framed wax tablets as they inventoried everything.

Chloé noticed she and Oh-One were drawing glances more and frequently the higher they moved into the city, glances that ranged from curious, to speculative, to almost worshipful awe. She smiled to herself. The inhabitants might be cookie-cutter peasants, but at least they appreciated true beauty when they saw it! She started walking with more confidence than she’d felt in weeks, strutting with a bit of suggestive sway in her hips, flipping her ponytail playfully.

In the small tiled plaza before the guarded doors that opened into what must be a city hall or palace, Chloé plucked a sticky crust-less baked treat from a tray carried by a servant, biting into it, the spicy-sweet burst of honey delighting her palate.

A gasp of surprise rippled through the inhabitants who had seen her act of selfish indulgence.

“A challenger!”, some lone voice in the thin crowd called.

The cry was picked up, the crowd building quickly, threatening to become a mob. “A Challenger! A Challenger!”

Chloé felt a tickle of fear. “Oh-One, what’s going on?”

-click- “Speculation: Passenger Chloé Bourgeois has inadvertently transgressed a local societal taboo.”

“Am I in trouble?”

-click- “That is an accurate assessment of the current situation.”

“Silence!!”, the harsh command whip-cracked over the plaza.

“No! A Challenger has appeared! Obey the forms!”, voices in the crowd called.

The voice behind the command stepped into the plaza. Distinctly female, clad in a fantasy of violet and purple that exposed as much as it concealed, her long dark hair emerging from the rear of a slit-visored close-fitting metal helmet that gave her face a distinctly predatory insectoid appearance.

Chloé fell back a half-step, un-nerved by the shocking similarity in appearance to Papillion.

“So. A ‘challenger’, are you? You’re a mere slip of a girl, a nothing, no-one”, the gynocrat sneered, just audible over the murmur of the crowd.

Chloé’s temper flared. “I'm not a nobody! I’m Queen Bee!”, she barked.

“Just so. You claimed my royal bread, and now you seek my throne--"

“Free us from tyranny, Queen Bee!”

The gynocrat smiled wickedly. “It seems you’ve already gathered a following. Very well. I will obey the forms. You have a day to prepare. Your followers shall equip you as you desire.”

A ragged cheer erupted from parts of the mob, surging forward to touch, caress their messiah, tugging at Chloé to follow them.

The city’s regent turned to enter the palace, paused, and called over her shoulder. “On the morrow, after your defeat in the plaza, I’ll have them all removed, ‘Challenger'.”

Chloé allowed herself to be led away into the city.

-click- “Does Passenger Chloé Bourgeois intend to follow local custom and participate in the ritual combat?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice, Oh-One. These people want, need, a hero, and I used to be one!”, Chloé smirked. “Between my skills and experience, I’ll have that overgrown aubergine beaten in no time!”

Hours later, gritting her teeth in frustration as she explained for at least the tenth time why her armor simply had to be gold and black, and as form-fitting as possible, Chloé wished she had a tenth of DuPain-Chang’s talent for costume design. Or was here beside her. Not that Chloé would ever admit that to Marinette.

All too soon, exhaustion overtook Chloé and she curled up on a simple pallet to snatch a few hours rest before meeting her foe. She fell asleep, face illuminated by the glowing green number in her palm.

*-*-*

Chloé was roused from sleep by her supporters, bolted a meagre morning meal, and hurried through her morning toilette, and went to prepare.  
The armor had been completed while she slept. A fitted bodysuit in her specified colors, densely padded while retaining flexibility, with lightweight plates that protected her torso and joints without sacrificing mobility.

“Queen Bee, are you absolutely certain this…toy…will be all the weaponry you require?” One attendant was highly dubious, watching nervously as Chloé stretched to limber up before being laced and strapped into her armor by other fawning attendants.

Chloé smiled, tying the black-enameled metal domino mask in place. The fist-sized spinning top was very familiar, the cord once provided by the Bee Miraculous replaced by a cunningly contrived intricate weaving of miniscule metal chain links that could be retracted or extended by a robust but sensitive spring mechanism. Tipped with a concoction the locals promised would render their oppressor helpless.

“Of course I’m certain! This will be a day to celebrate!”, Chloé asserted, testing the swing of her weapon of choice. She’d show Ladybug and that smug pun-slinging sidekick that Chloé Bourgeois didn’t need a magical trinket to outshine them!

It was mid-morning when Chloé stepped back into the plaza to answer the challenge issued the day before. Armored guards ringed the plaza, burnished skulls impaled on their spearshafts below the gleaming angular heads.

Her opponent stood in the doorway to the palace, clad in armor of polished silver and lustrous Tyrian purple. A wickedly barbed and fletched dart dangled in either hand, and a long-bladed dirk hung from each hip. “Let it be known that I, Regent Erlea, ruler of Skep and all attendant lands, do hereby acknowledge the Challenge, and of my own desire agree to engage in combat without quarter!”

Chloé hesitated, only for a second. “Wait, what?!”

A sharp shove between her shoulder-blades propelled Chloé into the duelling ground.

“Oh, didn’t your little coterie tell you, Queen Bee?”, Erlea chided. “This is a fight to the death. In this case, yours. Just like all the other pretenders who now decorate the spears of my daughters.”

That was all the warning Chloé had. She only just managed to throw herself prone on the ground, the dart cast by Erlea whipping over Chloé with a nasty whine, the spectator behind her impaled in the belly, collapsing, writhing as the barbs ripped open their flesh, dark blood staining the paving stones.

“Queen Bee! Queen Bee! QUEEN BEE!”, came the chant.

“Erlea! Erlea! Erlea!”, the guards countered, spear butts thumping the ground in time.

Erlea motioned for Chloé to rise. “Get up.”

Chloé flipped to her feet in a kippup, spun and threw her top, trailing it’s chain.

Erlea sidestepped, laughing. “That’s your weapon?! A child’s toy?!”, and threw the second dart, it’s razor barb kissing Chloé in the ribs on her left side as it whipped past, drawing blood, before burying itself in a bystanders leg.

“At this rate, I won’t have many of your followers to exterminate, ‘Queen Bee'”, Erlea mocked. “You're more dangerous to them than ever I was!”

Chloé snapped her wrist, retrieving her top, spinning it defensively as she had so long ago in Paris. Erlea reached to draw two more darts from a quiver on her back.

“You’re no hero, no warrior. You're a child playing dress-up.”

Chloé bit her lip. This was bad. People were hurt, maybe dying because of her. What would Ladybug do?

The regent spun and leapt, kicking, throwing both darts in quick succession. Chloé deflected one with her top, mostly by luck, the other dart ricocheting off her breastplate with impact that knocked the wind out of her. Chloé’s top lost momentum, clattering on the ground.

“Don’t you think it’s time we-", Erlea drew her blades, “- cut this short?”

Chloé’s head snapped up. God, she hated puns! She pirouetted for momentum, whipping her top, lashing out, using it as a long morning-star, the body of the top catching Erlea on the jaw, stunning her. Chloé continued the spin, using her instincts and dancer’s training to kick her opponent as hard as she could between the legs.

Erlea shrieked, knives clattering to the pavement, clutching herself, guarding the hypersensitive tissue.

Seeing the opportunity, Chloé whipped her top back, clutching it in her palm, and stabbed with the drugged tip, striking Erlea in the hollow of her throat.

Erlea sagged to her knees, gasping, violet eyes fixed on Chloé’s blue. “Bravo, little queen. You do have a sting after all”, she panted. “But if you don’t…make your victory…complete…your followers…will turn on you…tear you apart…with their bare hands…following the forms.”

Trembling, Chloé bent to lift one of Erlea's dirks. An angry thrum rose in the watching mob. Erlea grinned weakly. “Oh, dear…”, she gasped. “Didn’t…they tell you?” Panting breaths, labored as the drug took full effect. “You can…only use…the weapon…you entered with…” Husky, mocking laughter.

Chloé had two options.

The chain suspending the top looped around Erlea's neck, cutting into her flesh as Chloé turned, the doubled chain over her right shoulder, lifting with her legs, staring into the cloudless blue sky, tears streaming down her cheeks, unable to watch as the former ruler strangled.

A final, faint wheeze, and literal dead weight hung from Chloé’s shoulder. She only had a moment to realize what had happened when a savage, feral cheer engulfed her, carried her into the palace. She sat on the low throne, numb, as the mob overpowered and obliterated the guard cadre.

Behind the throne, twin red doors with golden handles. And Oh-One, carrying her belongings in a string bag.

Jubilant, a quill of scribes escorted a pretty, delicate, effeminate male before Chloé.

“Praise Queen Bee, first of her lineage, we present you with a fine drone! Breed many strong daughters to guard your reign!”, they exulted.

Nausea rippled in Chloé’s gut.

And an unpleasantly familiar voice jarred her.

“Now isn't that interesting?”, the Cat purred, stropping between the legs of the clustered scribes. “And here I thought I’d have to endure another tedious round of negotiations with Erlea. You will be sooo much more reasonable to bargain with, kitten , n’est-ce pas?”

It was too much for Chloé. She was violently ill on the floor, tearing away her armored domino mask, throwing it as she abandoned her new-won throne, running, slamming into the doors, spinning the handles, lunging through the portal. Chaos erupted behind her.

Her number had changed.

{1003}


	5. The Icon Car

Chloé stood on the platform at the end of the car, shuddering, clawing at the armor that clung to her, yanking at the straps until they tore, ripping the lacings, throwing the harness parts piece by piece over the railing into the wasteland speeding past below. The last item she hurled away was the padded undersuit of gold and sable.

“I nuh-never wuh-wuh-want to huh-hear the wuh-words ‘Queen Bee' again!”, Chloé sobbed, falling to her knees, hugging herself. “I juh-juh-just wuh-wanted to be a huh-hero again!” She collapsed, naked, defenceless, against the train car forward bulkhead. “Wuh-what is it wi-with me and FUH-FUCKING TRAINS?!”, the distraught blonde screamed.

-click- “Continued exposure to the environment will become detrimental to Passenger Chloé Bourgeois”, Oh-One reported. -click- “Minimum effective action required is resuming previous attire.” The string bag containing Chloé’s clothes landed beside her as she wept.

“Huh-how many puh-people did I hurt?”, Chloé wondered, scrubbing away tears. 

-click- “Estimated casualties--", Oh-One began.

“SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, TIN CAN!!”

Tears as Chloé curled up on herself. “Oh god…this is all my fault…”, she moaned. Neon green caught her eye. “Oh, no! It’s gone up! It went down, and now it’s gone up!”

Sitting up, she held her palm out to Oh-One. “Why did it change?!”, Chloé begged.

-click-

“Tell me! Please!”

-click- “The actions you undertake determine your ultimate fate, Passenger Chloé Bourgeois.”

Chloé trembled, the implications weighing on her. “If I hurt people, my number goes up, and I never get off the Train. But if my number goes down I die and get sucked up in the cloud…”, she said aloud, trying to decide what to do. “I can’t leave the Train without getting attacked by those bug monsters.” She shivered, not just from the wind of the Train's passage. 

No better ideas presented themselves. Chloé got dressed, slumping against the bulkhead, knees drawn up, biting a thumbnail. 

“Fuck.”

-click- “Have you reached a decision, Passenger Chloé Bourgeois?“

“No”, Chloé sighed, despondent. 

On the bright side, no-one had witnessed her meltdown. On the down side, her only company was a laconic robot.

Sighing, Chloé stood up. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

-click- “A succinct summation of the situation”, Oh-One observed.

They crossed the catwalk and Chloé opened the next pair of doors.

*-*-*

“Well…that’s not something you see every day…”, Chloé mused.

Before them, a grand art museum with marble floors, famous statues gliding slowly about, studying the various human figures and pictures on display.

“It's as if Lewis Carroll sent the Louvre through the looking glass”, Chloé wondered, feeling insignificant under the empty-eyed scrutiny of so many renowned works of art. The statuary seemed to regard Chloé as some amusing declassee folk art kinetic curiosity turned loose to challenge their preconceptions. 

Trying to be as unobtrusive as she could, Chloé wandered amongst the displays, some of which were far too familiar, scenes from Paris.

Then a flood of realization. 

Not just scenes from Paris. Scenes from her own life. “Oh-One, I don’t think I like this car.”

Turning to search for the exit, Chloé brushed past the display of a brassy-blonde diva. The display came to animatronic life, far, far too realistic.  
“Honestly, Chlorine, you’re in the way! Find a place and just stand there and look pretty!”, Audrey Bourgeois chided, martini glass in hand, sunglasses in place, casual disdain oozing from her botox sculpted face.

“Yes, Mother…”, Chloé answered reflexively, flinching, bumping into Michelangelo's ‘David', which somehow managed to look offended. Whirling away, Chloé fled to another gallery room, eyes in the paintings on the walls following her.

The next room was worse. A tableau of a small street scene, two blonde children, the boy accompanied by a hulking brute of a bodyguard, the girl escorted by a puffed-up, over-prideful father. The boy was holding out a stuffed toy bear, offering it as a gift. Chloé didn’t need to know what the sound clip would say. She remembered that day with painful clarity.

Pale red illumination to her left drew Chloé onwards. Sabrina. Pictures of her when Chloé had knocked the redhead to her knees. Carting Chloé‘s homework. Stealing Marinette's hat design. A turntable held three life-size mannequins of Sabrina: in her typical day-to-day lavender vest, teal shorts and black tights, arms clutching a school book in a meek defensive posture. Sabrina clad in skin tight black spandex. And a transparent rendering, optically perfect.

Chloé’s own voice mocked her from hidden speakers. “I’m you’re only friend, Sabrina. Remember that!”

“I could really use a friend right now”, Chloé said softly, looking at the statues as they spun slowly.

Room led into room, memory after memory, some good, few happy, many shameful.

The statues of the Paris Miraculous holders was almost the worst. Not posed heroically, no defiance or bravery.

Just scared kids, people she knew.

People she betrayed.

The last chamber was the worst. 

A life size statue, executed in gilt ivory, the clothing a hand-woven silk dream, every hair an individual gold wire. Perfect in every detail.

Right down to the superior sneer.

The exit doors were on the opposite side of the room.

Chloé passed to the right of her graven image, averting her eyes, disgusted. Impulsively, she flipped a rigid middle finger at herself.

“That’s incredibly rude!”, her statue announced.

“Fuck you, fuck You, Fuck You, I'm not listening", Chloé muttered, teeth clenched. 

“That’s right! Run away!”, the statue jeered. “Just don’t touch anything and leave your loser stink on it!”

Chloé stiffened, only for a moment, then slumped. “Yeah. I am a loser. So what?”, she admitted. “But I can leave here. You can’t.”

“Oh really?” the statue scoffed, stepping off her dais and over the gold velvet ropes. “I'm better than you in every way, admit it!”

Chloé stared in open-mouthed astonishment. 

“What? You thought I was just another one of those lifeless dummies?”, her doppelganger mocked, strutting towards Chloé. “You never were that smart, always getting Shab-rina to do your homework.”

Chloé circled left, eyes darting at the doorway she’d entered the room through. 

“Just think of all the fun sweet Adrikins will have with a girlfriend who’s young and beautiful forever…”

The heroes tableau. Chloé snatched the staff out of Chat Noir's black marble hand.

“And Mother will finally be proud of us!”, the statue exulted. “I’ll find Papillion, and I’ll be his greatest akuma, immortal and unstoppable! The world will bow at my feet!”

Chloé struck from behind, swinging the staff as hard as she could.

“SHUT UP!”, Chloé raged. “I’m not you! I’ll never be you! I’ll die before I let you hurt any more of my friends!” Staff blows fell like a hailstorm, crumpling gold, shattering ivory. “I hate you! I hate you! All you do is hurt people!”

Chloé stood there, panting raggedly, staff bent, hair tangled and pulling out of her ponytail. The masterwork eidolon of her image smashed into ruin.

-click- “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois cathartic release recorded.”

“Oh-One, I'm really not in the mood to listen to your snide commentary about how fucked up I am, and I’m still holding a big metal stick”, Chloé pointed out.

-click- “Noted.” 

Chloé threw aside the damaged staff, intending to open the door and leave, when a small alcove lit up, a shrine to one of the people closest to her, once upon a time. 

“She’s not a bad person, Marinette”, Adrian said. “Deep down, Chloé has a good heart. You’ve just got to give her a chance.”

Chloé scoffed softly. “I blew all my chances, Adrian. You were a better friend than I deserved. And I guess, so was Marinette.” 

The exit door handles slid at her touch, the double doors opening. Chloé looked at her hand.

{713}

“Maybe it’s time I gave myself a chance.”


	6. The Pirate Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning : Non-consensual sexual situation in this chapter.

She had just enough time to realize what was about to happen as she stepped through the double doors and gravity took over. Her scream was more surprise than fear, lasting no longer than the duration of the brief five meter sudden drop into crystal-clear blue water, ending in a feet-first limb-flailing splash.

Chloé Bourgeois, daughter and sole heir to the Mayor of Paris surfaced, sputtering indignantly, looking around as she treaded water.

A moment later, Oh-One announced their arrival by impacting the surface and immediately sinking to the sandy bottom.

More than slightly alarmed, Chloé turned a complete circle in the bath-warm water, looking desperately for signs of land. Even floating debris would be welcome.

Was that…? Yes! A sail!

“Hey!!”, Chloé yelled, waving her purse. “Over here! Au secours!” She wasn’t sure she'd been seen or heard. Gripping the thin strap of her purse in her teeth, Chloé stripped out of her light-weight yellow jacket, waving it, splashing from side to side. “Hey!!”

She was starting to get tired from treading water and waving her jacket when she saw the ship had definitely changed course in her direction. A two-masted dhow of red-brown acacia rigged with trapezoidal settee sails decorated with a stylized capital later ‘A', some of the crew crowding the white-painted rail as a life ring on a line was thrown to Chloé while a rope cargo net was lowered over the side for her to clamber up after she had been pulled close to the hull.

Hands helped pull her onto the deck, voices chattering in excitement, an age darkened green bottle pressed into her hands. Chloé gratefully took a gulp, gasping at the fiery burn of raw brandy.

“Hey. Hey! Back off! Give ‘er some room!”

The cluster surrounding Chloé parted, and a scruff-bearded sandy haired barefoot young man in ochre pantaloons and a maroon vest stepped forward. “Where ya from, pretty girl?”

“Paris?”, Chloé replied hesitantly.

“France?”

“Well certainly not Paris, Texas", Chloé sneered. “Merci beaucoup for the timely rescue.”

The young man shrugged. “It’s what we do”, he said modestly. “How does food and some dry clothes sound?”

“Heavenly", Chloé smiled.

The promised food turned out to be a bowl of indifferent lentil-thickened almost stew, edible, but far from the haute cuisine she had routinely dined on before boarding the Train. With meals infrequent and of wildly differing quality, Chloé gratefully wolfed it down, not even minding the bland flavor and paste-like texture.

Fed, and dried off, hair combed, Chloé inspected the clothing she’d been handed. ‘Skimpy' would be a complimentary term of art for the pieces, which consisted of a chiffon-thin black and electric blue sarong and a white micro bikini top. Blushing fiercely, and in full view of the mixed gender crew of about twenty, Chloé stripped out of her sodden clothing and donned the offered garments, then sat as modestly as she could on the deck, checking the contents of her purse for water damage.

Her identification and bank cards, made of plastic, were completely intact. Comb and nail file likewise. Her small make-up kit was almost a total loss, with only her pale pink lipstick surviving. Her mobile phone switched on, darkened for a heart-stopping moment, then displayed it’s home screen as it always had, the battery down to thirty-one percent charge.

“Yeah, your cell's not a lot of use on the ‘Freedom'.”

Chloé peered at the same scruffy young man who had more or less welcomed her aboard the ship. “Understood, merci”, she said, powering her mobile down and tucking it back in her purse, then slinging the purse over her shoulder.

“Donny", he introduced himself, holding out his right hand, not in greeting, but to display his number, which wrapped over the palm and back of his hand. “I'm the captain of this tub.”

{16595}

Chloé held up her right hand in turn.

“Looks like you’ve got a way to go yet", Donnie scoffed.

“You might say that", Chloé nodded.

“Got a name, pretty girl?”

“Lila. Rossi." The untruth slipped past her lips far too easily.

Donny grunted, nodding. “Welcome aboard, Lila Rossi.” He squatted on his heels. “Now, what can we do for you?”

“Do you know where the exit door is?”, Chloé asked without pretense.

A pause as Donny looked at the sea over the railing. “Like I said, it’s what we do. We mooch around waiting for another Passenger to make a splash when we’re not…fishing. Sometimes the Passengers stick around, become part of the crew if we have an opening, other Passengers we take to the doors. It’s about a three day trip.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad", Chloé nodded.

“This ain’t a cruise ship, princess”, Donny pointed out. “You gotta earn your passage. ‘Specially if you’ve got a mind to join us.”

Chloé pouted. “I don’t know anything about sailing.”

“Well", Donny announced, rising to stand, “You can start by swabbing the deck.”

Chloé groaned, gritting her teeth. “Fine.”

Donny whistled sharply at one of the crew. “Benny! Bring Lila here your bucket. She’s doing the deck.”

It took Chloé three tries to pull up a full bucket of water from the sea, the crew snickering as it slopped, soaking her and making the sheer fabric of her sarong cling to her shapely dancer’s legs. She looked about for the mop.

The scrub brush landed in the bucket with a plopping thunk. “Uh-uh, pretty girl. On your hands and knees”, Donny smirked.

If looks could kill, Donny would have perished in that instant.

Hours later, Chloé was sweaty, exhausted, very hungry, and thoroughly disgusted by the leering appraisal and suggestive comments from the crew who seemed to take delight in making her re-do patches of the deck she'd just scrubbed. Her hands were tender and wrinkled from being wet all day, her knees ached horribly, her back stiffening rapidly, and her nipples chafed from the cheap bikini top. She had been simply appalled to discover the bathroom facilities were nothing more than open wooden seats with hand-grips hanging over the stern port and starboard rails.

Leaning back against the mainmast, Chloé eyed her bowl of flavorless mush dubiously. Beside her, a girl with a black braid, bright blue eyes, and a number in the two-thousands snickered. Somebody nudged her foot with a toe. Donny.

“I think you earned a hot bath and some decent food. C'mon.”

Chloé abandoned her bowl and numbly followed Donny below deck to his cabin. As promised, a hot bath waited. In the form of half of a large wooden barrel. Chloé tugged the knots of her clothing loose, letting them drop to the floor, and sank into the hot water with a sybaritic groan, curling up to fit into the tub.

Donny laid out fruit, bread, cheeses, and cured meat of some kind on the table below the window in the stern, then poured two silver goblets of white wine.

“Are going to seduce me?”, Chloé smiled.

“Maybe”, Donny replied, offering one of the goblets to Chloé. “I’d like to make up for your treatment by the rest of the crew before that though.”

Chloé sipped her wine. Tolerable. “That was a test?”

“You could say so”, Donny sidestepped.

“I’m not interested in joining your crew if that's what all this effort is about”, Chloé cautioned. “All I want to do is find the exit and move on. I’m not interested in making friends right now.”

Donny sipped from his goblet. “Fair enough. If you don’t mind being cooped up, you can stay in my cabin until we reach the exit.”

“And in return?”, Chloé arched an eyebrow at the young captain.

Donny grinned. “Ass, gas, or grass, as my daddy used to say. And pardon me, Lila, your dangly gold earrings don’t quite pay the toll.”

“This is coercion.”

“Two more days to the exit, you scrubbing decks all the way”, Donny countered.

Chloé drained her goblet, handing it back to Donny, then standing up, water sluicing off her pale golden skin. “Fine, but after I eat.”

Supper was a trial, Donny being stereotypically seductive, leering at Chloé as she sat across from him, naked. Chloé drank another goblet of wine with her meal to steady her nerves, eventually rising to stumble to Donny’s captains bed, sprawling spread-eagled on her back.

“Let’s get on with it.”

Chloé almost managed not to flinch when Donny kissed her left leg just above her knee. Another followed, inches higher on her thigh. Another. One in the hollow of her hip, his beard tickling her sensitive skin, drawing an involuntary gasp. A kiss just above the blonde thatch of her pubic hair, one on her lower belly.

The bastard was trying to seduce her after all!

A ticklish kiss to her navel, her stomach, between the soft mounds of her pink nippled breasts, a kiss in the hollow of her throat...

Donny moved up. Chloé turned her head, avoiding his lips, raising a hand to fend him off. “This isn’t a date, and I’m not in love with you. Forget it.”

Donny shrugged, and started kissing a lingering trail back down Chloé’s torso, down her right thigh. Warm breath a moment later on her labia were her only warning before his tongue slid wetly up the length of her slit, barely flicking her sensitive clit. Chloé grunted in unexpected pleasure, hips bucking.

Strong hands pushed her legs up and apart, exposing Chloé to Donny's hungry, demanding gaze. Then a rush of lascivious sensation as Donny's tongue darted, teased, licked, and probed, Chloé whimpering, blonde head tossing side to side, grimacing as she tried to hold out against the rising tide of sensation that threatened to overwhelm her at any second, one hand gripping a fistful of linen bed sheet, the other tangled in Donny's shaggy hair.

“Goddamn you…no… wait--!”, Chloé begged, just before she felt Donny's teeth nip her aching clit, and she shivered and bucked in a belly-rippling release that left her gasping, blue eyes wide and staring at nothing.

The soft sound of clothing being removed, falling to the plank floor. A moment of alarm as weight settled on Chloé.

“Wait!”, she pleaded. “You have protection, right?”

“Fuck that!”, Donny barked derisively. “Bareback is the only way to go!”

Something unpleasantly warm, blunt, and firm prodded at Chloé between her legs.

Chloé slapped Donny in the face. Hard.

Donny reared back, enraged, and slapped Chloé just as hard splitting her lip, drawing blood.

Desperately bringing up her right leg, Chloé wedged it between their struggling bodies, pushing, slapping, until she could kick out with all of her dancer-trained strength, sending Donny staggering back, tripping, almost falling into the tepid bath water, before recovering and storming back, intent on avenging his offended male pride.

“We had a deal, bitch!”, he raged.

Chloé rolled out of the bed, a snap kick almost catching Donny in the crotch, making him gasp and double over protectively. “Fuck you!”

“Oh, I’m going to!”, Donny threatened.

Chloé snatched up the wine bottle, holding it by it’s neck like a short club, the last of the wine gurgling out to spatter onto the floor and Chloé’s bare feet. “Try it, and I’ll fucking geld you!”, she promised.

Donny chuckled. “You stupid bitch! This is an Apex pirate ship! Passengers either join us, or we sell them to the Arena. Twenty of us, one of you, you low-digit moron.”

Horrible realization dawned on Chloé. “I killed Queen Erlea", she warned, shakily.

Donny held up his right hand, flaunting his number. “Ooooo. I’m scared. Bitch, I’ve killed dozens of people.”

Chloé started trembling. Donny had the same oily, cold, dismissive tone Papillion did. The same uncaring, soulless disdain for human life.

The bottle was slapped out of her hand, Donny's fingers gripping her jaw too firmly, hurting as he almost lifted her.

“You could have played along, been a good little whore, and I would have just dropped you on the dock”, Donny hissed. “Now? Now you've pissed me off, I've lost my wood, and you’re gonna spend the next two days scrubbing the decks, naked. And Benny? Low-dog on the pole Benny is gonna be holding a length of knotted rope to beat your ass to make sure you do a good job.”

Changing his grip to her upper arm, Donny shoved Chloé out of his cabin.

“Lock this bitch in the kennel until morning.”


	7. The Arena

A harsh shove between her shoulder-blades thrust Chloé into the barred cell barely larger than her bed at home. She only just managed to stop herself from slamming into the back wall in time before the thick wooden door thudded shut, the sound of a thick bar dropping into place to prevent her escape. Mocking laughter as the sarong she'd worn for two days was tossed through the small window in the door as an after-thought. Chloé snatched it up, wrapping the cloth around herself to reclaim some sense of dignity before sitting carefully, hissing as the tender welts on her bottom came into contact with the cold stone floor.

Knees drawn up, leaning against the wall, Chloé rubbed her forehead with her right hand, the green glow of her number reflecting in tears running down her cheeks, somewhere between resignation and despondency.

“Congratulations, Chloé”, she muttered into the gloom. “Once again you’ve managed to turn a bad situation into a complete disaster.”

“That’s a rather negative self assessment, don’t you think?”, came the cultured voice in the shadows of the next cell.

“Just being honest with myself”, Chloé sighed as she examined the thick bronze straps riveted to each other in a grid that made up the walls of the cells, with just enough space she could fit her opened hand through the gaps.

“May I ask where you are from?”, the voice inquired.

Chloé shrugged. “Paris. Not that is matters. Not anymore.”

“I must admit I’ve never heard of ‘Paris'”, came the reply. “But until recently, I’d never heard of Oshkosh either. But where are my manners. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Uh, Chloé Bourgeois.”

“You have a lovely voice, Chloé, and a most melodious accent.”

“Thank you, umm…?”

“Oh, yes. Introductions.” Chloé could hear humour in the voice. “I am King Atticus of Corginia, Uniter of the Pembrokes and Cardigans. I am most honored to meet you, Chloé.”

“Um, yeah. Likewise. I guess.”

Chloé wrapped her arms around her knees, trying not to think about her probable fate. And failing.

Something moved in the cell beside her. “You seem rather pensive”, Atticus observed.

“There’s an understatement”, Chloé scoffed. “Just how excited should I be that I’m in a prison cell because I pissed off a bunch of pirates and now I’m probably going to get chopped to pieces or fed to a monster. So yeah, party time, why not?!”

“You sound like you could use a friend.”

Chloé almost stifled a sob. “I don’t deserve friends. All I do is use people and hurt them! I’m on this stupid Train because I’m useless and horrible!”

“I must respectfully disagree, Chloé. A truly horrible person lacks the awareness that their actions can negatively affect others.”

“What do you know about it?!”, Chloé demanded hotly, tears welling in her eyes.

“Personally, nothing”, Atticus admitted. “But it is my duty as king to listen to my subjects, to hear their grievances, and if nothing else, provide compassion.”

Chloé slumped against the bars of the cell, sniffling. “Nobody ever listens to me. Never did. Not really.”

“I had a friend who felt much the same way.”

“And you left her!”, Chloé accused.

“That's quite uncalled for, Chloé”, Atticus chided her. “I didn’t abandon my friend. After a series of rather exciting adventures together, Tulip came to an understanding and left the Train.”

Chloé hiccupped, sobbing. “You’re as bad as Oh-One! You let her die!”

“Die? Tulip did nothing of the sort! She resolved her numerous personal issues and left the Train, returning to her home in Wisconsin”, Atticus explained patiently. “Who told that rather erroneous fabrication?”

“Oh-One. He, it, follows me around, making snide comments and acting superior”, Chloé sighed.

“That's better than shooting at you, as the Steward tried to do with Tulip. And yours truly.”

Chloé sniffled, sobbed, and laughed at the same time. “I’m all fucked up, Atticus. I don’t know what’s going on, and every time I turn around, someone or something is trying to kill me! The only one who was nice to me was my reflection.” She felt a gentle tap on her right hip, touch offering reassurance. Chloé glanced down, slightly startled to see a white paw pressed against her skin.

“Oh”, Chloé deadpanned. “You’re a dog.”

“As rightful King of Corginia, what else would I be?”

“First a talking cat, now a talking dog”, Chloé sniffled.

“Ah. You’ve met…Her.” Atticus' tone was less than enthusiastic. “No doubt she relayed information of dubious veracity or usefulness.”

Chloé nodded, drying her tears with the back of one hand.

“I’m here to listen, Chloé”, the regal canine offered, genuinely concerned. “That is, if you wish to speak.”

“Am I crazy, Atticus?”

“No more or less so than any other of your kind I have encountered”, her prison companion observed. “However, I must admit my sample pool is limited, and recent encounters have left me with something of a biased impression.”

Chloé scoffed sympathetically. “Yeah, I think we’re both kinda familiar with that.”

Silence for a moment.

“Might I ask a favor of you, Chloé?”

“I guess?”

“It’s quite possible one or both of us may perish in the arena tomorrow”, Atticus admitted honestly. “Would it be too much to ask if I might have a belly rub? Tulip excelled at them—”

“I wasn’t allowed to have pets”, Chloé blurted out. “I live, lived, in a hotel in Paris. Guests could bring them in, but I wasn’t allowed. Daddy said they made a mess that would be expensive to clean up, and Mother didn’t want anything around that demanded attention.” Chloé stared unseeing at the cell door. “Hell, she didn't even want me around. Didn’t want to be reminded that I even existed.”

“That's terrible, Chloé! No-one should feel unwelcome in their own home!” Atticus was indignant.

“Oh, it gets better!”, Chloé sighed. “I don’t even know exactly how old I am! We didn’t celebrate birthdays, because that meant Mother was getting older, and in the fashion industry, being old is worse than dying.”

“Where was your father during all of this?”

“Where he always was! In his office, either busy running the hotel or busy being Mayor of Paris. I was an afterthought at best, indulged to get me to shut up.” Chloé harshly rubbed a thumbnail along the pale lines on her right thigh.

“Chloé, please stop what you’re doing”, Atticus gently requested. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Startled, Chloé realized what she was doing, folding her right hand to her breast, guilt and shame bringing fresh tears. “That's just it! I don’t know if I want to stop! I don’t know if I can stop!” She collapsed on her side, sobbing, shaking. “I tried so hard! I tried to be just what Mother and Daddy wanted, to be perfect! And it wasn’t enough! It was never enough!”

“You don't have to be perfect, Chloé. No one does.”

“But I’m horrid!”, Chloé protested. “I’m useless and mean!”

“You’re hurt. You’ve been hurting for a long time.”

“Everybody leaves me!”

“Or do you push them away?”

“I-I-I…”, Chloé whimpered. “I push them away! I make them leave! I make them leave like Mommy left me! I hate her! I hate her! She's my mother and I fucking hate her! I want her to love me, and she left me, and I hate her! I try to be like her and I hate her!!”, Chloé howled, sobbing.

Chloé reached between the bars, touching Atticus. “Don’t hate me. Don't leave me. Please don’t leave me. I’m so scared…”

“I won’t leave you, Chloé.”

“So soft”, Chloé whispered, exhausted.

Atticus rose, moving only enough to turn so he could keep watch on their respective cell doors. “Get some rest, Chloé. I give you my word as King of Corginia, no harm will come to you while I stand guard.”

*-*-*

“How did you end up in here?”

Atticus lifted his head. “I was captured by these Apex brigands while I was on my return journey to Corginia.”

Chloé smiled, ruefully. “I used to be a superhero.”

“You’re using past tense”, Atticus pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s something else I fucked up”, Chloé sighed. “I wanted to be special, to show everyone that I wasn’t useless--"

“To show your parents, you mean.”

Chloé hung her head. “To show my parents. To get them to notice me. Be proud of me. And all I did was be a queen bitch and betray people who had trusted me, who had relied on me.”

Silence.

“I betrayed my idol. I betrayed the one person I admired, that I wanted to be”, Chloé confessed.

“You betrayed yourself.”

Chloé scoffed. “Yeah. I did.”

“That was very brave, Chloé”, Atticus nodded. “Facing your problems is the first step to overcoming them.”

The door to the hallway their cells were in banged open, footsteps stuffing the floor, the bar on Chloé’s cell removed. “Show time”, the pirate grinned unpleasantly as he opened the door.

Chloé was pulled out of the cell, Atticus barking defiantly, and shoved down the hallway and around a corner towards blinding sunlight framed by another doorway. Just before she was pushed out onto the sand, rough hands ripped away her sarong, exposing her.

Stumbling on the soft surface, Chloé blinked, shading her eyes while adjusting to the dazzling glare.

The Arena wasn’t large, maybe fifteen meters across, roughly circular, with four meter tall walls of dressed stone, the upper lip guarded by downward sloping edged spikes as long as her forearm. There were three entrances. The one Chloé had been forced through, a barred gate opposite below a private box, and the red exit doors to Chloé’s left. A meagre crowd murmured and catcalled in the seats, some betting loudly how long Chloé would last.

“Are you going to give us a good show, ‘Lila', or should I say, Chloé Bourgeois?”, Donny called from his awning-shaded box seat, next to a woman who wore an expression of haughty self-importance Chloé recognised all too well. And despised.

Chloé raised a rigid middle finger in defiance. “You went through my purse. Big fucking deal, you gutless coward.”

The callous woman next to Donny stood, throwing a short sword into the ring near Chloé. 

“You win, you live.”

Chloé lifted the sword, glaring contempt at the woman. “Come on down. I’m in a shitty mood.”

“Tempting, but no. Maybe after you’ve proven yourself”, the arena mistress replied. “For now, all you have to do is beat your opponent.” A wave of her hand and the barred gate swung aside, and the challenger charged onto the sands of the arena.

Atticus.

Chloé stared at the sword in her hand, then Atticus.

“No.” Quiet. 

The sword dropped to the sand.

“Fight or die!”, the arena mistress shrilled.

Chloé knelt in the sand, feeling the warm sun on her skin, the play of grains of sand as it shifted under her. She swept aside her blonde hair, exposing her throat.

“I’d rather die than betray a friend”, Chloé promised quietly, staring Atticus in the eyes for a span of heartbeats, then closed her pale blue eyes. “Please make it quick.”

A cold wet nose nuzzled her leg. Chloé opened her eyes, staring down at her friend.

“I'm proud of you. No one is dying today, least of all you”, Atticus nodded.

Commotion, confusion in the stands, outrage, shock. Screams. Pain.

Chloé opened her eyes to see Oh-One neatly, efficiently descending through the mob, spindly limbs lashing out, glittering blue lances of energy burning down pirates who tried to prevent the automaton from reaching it’s goal, one manipulator holding a knotted bundle of cloth. An actuator initiated leap had Oh-One clear the sharpened spikes ringing the lip of the arena, Donny howling in impotent rage.

-click- “Your possessions, Passenger Chloé Bourgeois. And I believe this belongs to you, King Atticus.” Oh-One passed Chloé a small, highly appropriate crown, which Chloé restored to its rightful bearer.

“Thank you, Chloé. I’d been missing that.”

The mismatched trio approached the exit doors, which opened at Chloé’s touch.


	8. The Barre Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to Mintyrest.
> 
> 'Fuckin' Perfect' lyrics copyright Pink

“That was very noble of you, Chloé,” Atticus of Corginia said with a note of almost paternal approval in his tone, “volunteering to stand in at the last second as Best Maid for a strangers wedding.”

Chloé was bent over, standing on the car platform, long blonde hair pulled forward as she finger-combed clumps of confetti loose to blow away in the breeze of the Train's passage. “It was fun, and how could I not, especially after I was the one who stood up to both of the brides fathers and said Janny and Kue-el should be allowed to get married if they wanted to!”

-click- “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois instigated a riot", Oh-One observed.

“A pie fight is not a riot", Chloé argued with a grin, kneeling to pick confetti out of Atticus' golden pelt, then giving him a thorough scratching. “Besides, that stuffy old coot deserved that tart I nailed him with.”

The handles on the door to the next car turned with a quiet hiss, opening to admit them into a large dance studio, the right-hand wall consisting of floor to ceiling mirrors with a waist height rail, the floor a sheet of polished metal, and the left-hand wall floor to ceiling windows looking out on a landscape of green hills under a blue sky scudding with patchy cumulus clouds. French doors led onto a patio overlooking a fragrant garden. On the far wall, a swinging door led to a change room and showers, with the exit leading out of the change room.

Chloé blinked, then laughed. “Goddamn puns!”

Atticus looked up at Chloé, confused. “Whatever do you mean?”

Chloé snickered. “This is a train.”

“I’m not following you…”

“This is the ‘barre car'!”, Chloé explained.

“OH. That’s dreadful!”, Atticus chuckled. “Would you mind opening the doors to the patio? I prefer not to alarm my reflection. He’s such a timid fellow.”

Chloé let Atticus out to enjoy the cool shade, and moved to stand in front of the long mirror, smiling gently, reminiscing. “Hey, beautiful”, she softly addressed her reflection.

Her reflection leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the crystalline barrier that separated them. “Hey, prime. How are you holding up?”

“I've…been better.”

“Can I see your hand?”

Chloé held up her palm so her reflection could see the neon green numerals.

{397}

“You’re doing so good, baby!”, her reflection enthused.

“I’m still a goddamn mess. Bad dreams”, Chloé admitted.

“Donny?”

Chloé shook her head. “Erlea.”

Her reflection looked worried. “What happened?”

“I…” A tear slid down Chloé’s cheek. “I was stupid, and thoughtless, and too fucking proud to admit I was in the wrong. And Erlea died. And it’s my fault.”

“Oh, prime, no. It’s not your--", her reflection tried to comfort Chloé.

“I fucking strangled her with my top! Because I wanted to play at being a hero, and there was a fight and I fucking killed her!”, Chloé sobbed, pounding on the glass with her fist. “I fucked up, and I ran away! I always make a fucking mess, and I run away!”

Chloé sat abruptly on the mirrored floor, leaning against the wall. “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry! You don’t deserve to reflect a horrible mess like me!”

“Chloé, baby, I'm not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.”

“I killed someone!”, Chloé howled.

“She didn’t give you a choice.”

“How would you know?!”

“Her fucking polished armor.”

Chloé hiccupped, mortified. “You saw me?”

“Bitch had it coming. Donny too, from what I could see in those cheap silver goblets”, Chloé’s reflection grinned.

“You don’t hate me?”, Chloé sniffled.

“No. Never.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“You’re my prime, and I’m with you to the end”, her reflection promised.

Chloé sighed, inspecting herself. “Umm, how do I look?”

“Like someone who had a shitty day.”

A self-depreciating snicker from Chloé. “Thanks. I’m…gonna go check the exit door.”

“Don’t bother", her reflection advised. “The door won’t open for you.”

“So I’m stuck?”, Chloé inquired.

Her reflection shook her head. “Maybe. Dunno for sure. If the entry door opens, you could try going over the top to another car and try your luck there. Or…”

“Or?”

“You let me do my part in this and open the door for you.”

“So if you open the door in your car--", Chloé thought aloud.

“Wrong”, her reflection interrupted. “I have to open the door in your car. We have to trade places. Trick is, the flecs are super-paranoid about anyone crossing the barrier after Tulip and Lake screwed things up. I have to come back here once I'm done.”

Chloé stood up. “How do we…um…trade places?”

Her reflection moved under Chloé in the polished floor. “We both step forward at the same time, using opposite feet. Count of three?”

Chloé nodded. “Un.”

“Deux!”, continued Chloé’s reflection.

“Trios!”, Chloé finished, the two stepping forward as planned, Chloé experiencing a weird moment of not-quite dizziness as the transfer was completed. The atmosphere of the mirror world was colder, sterile, flat and empty. She looked down/up at herself, who was inspecting her own body, exploring the sensation of life beyond the looking glass, inhaling deeply.

“Oh my god! What’s that incredible smell?”, her reflection demanded giddily.

“The garden?”, Chloé replied.

“Can I go look?! Please?!”

Chloé smiled, nodding, watching as her reflection stepped out on the patio, greeting Atticus, introducing herself, patting him.

“Your splinter is a trip", Oh-One’s reflection observed.

“Oh-one?”

“Here, I guess I’d be One-Oh", came the informal reply.

Chloé became cautious. “Are you going to reports us to the le flecs?”

One-Oh laughed, more than a little unnerving. “Hell no, cutie! I’m no narc. Do your thing, just don’t hurt anyone, dig?”

“Why couldn't I have had you as a companion?”, Chloé giggled.

“Yeah, old No-Fun is a total lamppost, isn’t he?”

Chloé was distracted by her reflection knocking on the mirror. “Hey, can I grab a shower before I open the door?”

“I guess?”

“Thanks!”, her doppelganger grinned. “I’ll be back in a flash!”

Chloé was sitting, leaning against the mirror, playing Rock-Paper-Scissors with One-Oh when her reflection returned a short time later, skin pink and glowing from the shower, combing her hair.

“That was amazing!”, Chloé’s reflection grinned as Chloé stood up.

“Do you get bored in here?”

Her reflection paused, smile faltering. “You have no fucking idea.”

Chloé leaned her forehead against the barrier, hand raised, pressing on the glass, wishing they could touch, if only for a second. “I'm so sorry.”

“Chloé?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you…oh shit, this is gonna sound so weird…”, her reflection blushed.

“It’s okay. Anything you want", Chloé encouraged, staring into her own blue eyes. “Anything.”

“Would you…dance for me?”

“I’d be honored”, Chloé smiled.

A deep breath, and the transfer back was completed.

Chloé looked fondly at her reflection, pulling her lipstick out of her purse, writing on the glass by the right-hand edge.

Je T’aime

“I love you too, prime", her reflection said softly.

Blue eyes stared at blue eyes.

“What?”, Chloé’s reflection asked.

“Oh my god…”, Chloé whispered.

“What?!”

“You’re me. But you’re not me.”

“Uh, yeah! I noticed”, her reflection snarked.

“No, you don’t get it!”, Chloé protested. “Oh, shit! Why didn't I see it sooner!”

“What?!”

“I know who Ladybug is!”

Her reflection paled. “Oh shit…”

Chloé started to panic, hyperventilating. “Oh fuck, oh fuck…fuck! Fuck! Why did it have to be her?! Why goddamn Marinette?!”

“Slow down, baby. Please! Slow down. Easy. Sit if you have to.”

Chloé collapsed, legs crossed.

“I made her life a living hell, and the whole time, she’s running around, saving Paris, saving my useless ass, and then I go and fuck her over, betray her… shit, no wonder she took Pollen away. I’m such a selfish, useless fucking moron!”, Chloé berated herself.

“Hey! No! Don’t you dare blame yourself!”, her reflection slapped the glass. “Marinette couldn’t tell you! She couldn't, can't, tell anyone! Ever! That’s not your fault!”

“But it is my fault for being such a bitch to her!”

“Chloé, baby, you were a bitch because your mother fucked you up.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?!”, Chloé whined.

Her reflection pointed at the lip-stick words. “That's why.”

Chloé sniffled. “I wish I could hug you.”

“Me too.”

“God, I hate this Train”, Chloé sighed. “I'm a fucking crybaby ever since I got on board.”

“You’re human. Emotions are natural. And yours have been bottled up forever.”

Chloé leaned her forehead against the glass.

“Still want me to dance for you?” Dubious.

“… Please.”

Chloé stood, kicked off her stained flats, stripped off her tight once-white pants, tossed aside her yellow jacket, and ran through a series of stretches, limbering up, then retrieving her mobile, activating it, flicking through her music.

“Umm, can I make a request?”, her reflection inquired gently.

Chloé shrugged. “Sure.”

“Hold you mobile up so I can see?”

“Okay.”

Chloé’s reflection leaned forward, eyes darting as she read the list.

“There! That one! Third down?”

Chloé glanced at her mobile. “Are you sure?”

Her reflection nodded affirmative.

Chloé tapped the screen, the first notes drifting up from the speaker as she placed the mobile on the barre.

“Made a wrong turn, once or twice”, her reflection sang along, serenading Chloé.  
“Dug my way out, blood and fire  
Bad decisions, that’s alright  
Welcome to my silly life.”

“Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood,  
Miss ‘No way! It's all good!’, it didn’t slow me down.   
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated,  
Look I’m still around.”

Chloé eased into the moves, stepping, spinning, reaching, the music flowing into and through her…

“Pretty, pretty please, don’t you ever ever feel,  
Like you're less than fuckin' perfect.  
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you’re nothing,  
You’re fuckin' perfect to me…”


	9. The Island Car

She was tired.

Not just physically tired, which God knows she was, traipsing from car to car on this impossible, utterly ridiculous Train, but also emotionally, mentally exhausted. Drained.

Which is probably why Chloé was startled when the doors she had just stepped through snapped shut and vanished before Atticus of Corginia and the exasperating Oh-One could join her.

Chloé looked skyward (this car had a sky, thankfully), a long-suffering expression on her face, knowing she had only herself to blame if she dared ask ‘Why me?’.

“Alright. I get it. Learn how to do things on my own”, she said to no-one in particular, but mostly to herself. “Let’s get it over with.”

The blonde heiress, once haughty daughter of the mayor of Paris, put her hands on her hips and looked around. Hills sloping to a low mountain, the earth and rock outcroppings sandy yellow brown and ochre. Patches of scraggly pin oak, juniper, and some kind of shrubby conifer. Grasses gone pale with late summer heat, the sky a white haze of bright overcast. Overall, Chloé had the distinct impression that she was standing on an island.

Except for one glaring omission.

No water lapped the shoreline.

Chloé cautiously approached the edge, mindful that it might abruptly give way. Kneeling, no longer caring that her whitish capris had probably picked up yet another stain, she dropped a fist-sized rock over the side, watching, horrified as the stone receded, plummeting, vanishing into the white void.

“That is a long, long way down…”, she whispered to herself. She’d probably starve to death before she hit the bottom. If she hit the bottom.

On hands and knees, Chloé retreated from the edge, standing on shaky legs once she guessed the ground was sufficiently solid beneath her.

Memories of leaping from building to building above the streets of Paris now filled her with a new appreciation of the risks she’d needlessly taken.

And a new understanding of what once clumsy and mild-mannered Marinette DuPain-Chang endured every time she became Ladybug. 

A flutter of sun-faded cloth, blue, red, green, yellow, caught Chloé’s eye, flags tied to a cairn of stones at the foot of a trail leading uphill. Roughly a hundred meters away was a second similar cairn. Chloé hoped the trail led to the exit doors, and began the climb.

*-*-*

Chloé wasn’t exactly sure how long she’d been trudging uphill. The hazy, indirect light of the sky never changed, creating a surreal impression of eternal now to the slowly evolving vista as the pilgrimage she followed wound its way up and around the flanks of the floating island’s peak. The only sounds were her footsteps on the dusty path, the beating of her heart. She started humming to herself, just to hear something, a tune from the dance studios at home, letting her pace keep time.

Eventually, the trail emptied onto a wide ledge, almost a plateau, which was occupied by a small one-storey building with a stone foundation and plastered whitewashed walls beneath a curving, red-tiled hip roof that gave the structure an oriental flair. A spring of fresh water bubbled out of the cliff face, the flow channelled by bamboo pipes that fed a water-clock that ‘tok-tok’-ed hollowly as she approached, emptying into a pool.

The trail re-appeared, leading to a cave mouth about twenty meters away, passing a gnarled tree to the right of the building that shaded a white haired and bearded old man gone softly plump with old age, seated before an elaborate game board set into a low table. Robes of cotton the shade of old ivory, trimmed with a contrasting jade green border, rustled softly as he poured two cups of tea.

“You must be thirsty", the old man smiled, his gravelly voice jovial. “Please, rest and share a cup of tea.”

Chloé nodded, slipping her purse off her shoulder and taking a seat on the simple yet elegant bench of dark polished wood. “Thank you.”

“You look as though you have been on your journey for some time", he politely commented.

Chloé smiled wryly, a soft scoff escaping her. “In more ways than one.”

“Have some tea. It’s jasmine”, the old man smiled proudly.

Chloé sipped, feeling the tension slip away as the warm beverage soothed her parched throat. “It’s delicious.”

Time passed, a faint breeze rustling the leaves of the shady tree, the water clock sounding it’s double beat.

“You’re my trial here, aren’t you?”, Chloé asked.

The old man shook his head, frowning slightly. “I’m just an old man, passing the time drinking tea and playing games while I wait for my nephew.”

Chloé tensed slightly, cautious now. “What kind of games?”

The old man indicated the table top between them with an open hand. “This one. Dice games. Or word games.”

“Mind games?”

He shook his head, frowning. “Those are most unpleasant.”

Chloé arched an eyebrow. “Have you ever heard of the ‘Question Game'?”

“Are you assuming I haven't?” Amber eyes wrinkled in amusement.

“How would we keep score?”

“You don’t know how to count on your fingers?”, came the impish reply.

Chloé decided to take a chance. “Where is the way out?”

“Have you looked in the cave?”

“Is it dangerous?”

The old man shrugged expressively. “What do you consider dangerous?”

Chloé took a moment to gather her thoughts, sipping her tea. “May I have some more?”

“Isn’t it an elegant way to get to know someone?”

Chloé nodded.

“Have you ever lost?” Chloé looked the old man directly in the eye.

He nodded. “More than once.”

Chloé smiled, lifting a finger to claim her first point.

The old man smiled, lifting a finger in turn. “Very well played, young woman. Would that my nephew learned such wisdom at a similar age. I concede.”

Chloé was slightly crestfallen. She’d been enjoying herself. 

“What’s your name?”

“Hmm. Call me…’Uncle’.”

For some reason, that made Chloé feel…accepted. “I’d like that. I never had an uncle.”

“And who are you, if I may ask?”, Uncle inquired.

“Chloé Bourgeois. Daddy, my father, is the Mayor of Paris.”

Uncle regarded Chloé silently for a moment.

“That is your name. I asked who you are.”

Chloé’s shoulders slumped, as she looked at the ground. “I--", she hesitated. “I’m don’t know. Not anymore. Not really.”

She looked up, staring into the infinite white haze. “I used to think it was enough, being pretty, being rich, having my daddy be important. Bossing people around. But all I did was push people who cared about me away.”

Chloé folded her hands in her lap, disappointed with herself. “I'm nobody special. I’m useless, Uncle.”

“Nonsense.”

Chloé looked up sharply at the old man, who was smiling gently at her. “Excuse me?!”

“I said, ‘nonsense'”, Uncle grinned.

“I don’t understand…”. Chloé was confused.

“You stopped to share a cup of tea with an old man. You passed the time playing a game, for no reason at all. Bringing joy and comfort to others with no expectation of reward. That’s hardly useless.”

Chloé sniffled, a tear running down her cheek. She smiled. 

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, in my entire life” Chloé confessed.

Uncle grinned, lines creasing his face. “I'm just as useless.”

Chloé lunged across the table, wrapping the old man in a tight embrace. “Thank you!”, she sobbed.

Uncle let her cry, patting her back consolingly.

Eventually, Chloé released the old man, resuming her seat.

“Better?”

Chloé smiled softly. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“Never be afraid to admit you're wrong”, Uncle suggested.

“What’s in the cave?”

Uncle shrugged. “No idea. It’s not my journey.”

Chloé sighed. She should have been expecting that.

“I do know that outside the cave there is a book. Very dangerous, because it contains all the knowledge in the world”, Uncle cautioned. “Be very certain you're willing to pay the price if you open it.”

With a nod, Chloé picked up her purse and stood. “Thank you very much for the tea. Would it be improper for a young lady to kiss her uncle farewell?”

Uncle grinned. “Not at all!”

Chloé kissed him on the cheek. “I hope your nephew comes to see you soon.”

“He will arrive at the appointed time. Safe travels to you, Chloé.”

They waved goodbye to each other. Chloé could hear Uncle start to sing in a language she didn’t know as she made her way up the path to the cave.

As Uncle had forewarned her, a large book bound in dark leather awaited her to the left of the cave mouth. It appeared to have perhaps ten leaves, each one quite thick.

Chloé had almost entered the cave when curiosity overcame her common sense, and she impulsively opened the book.

The pages were mirrors, held by leather.

As promised, the book held all the knowledge in the world. 

Laughing, Chloé entered the cave, seeking the exit.


	10. The Crucible Car

Chloé found Atticus and Oh-One waiting for her as she exited the Floating Island Car.

-click- “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois traversed the previous compartment more rapidly than anticipated.”

“Congratulations would be in order then!”, Atticus announced, flag of a tail wagging vigorously. “Huzzah indeed!”

Chloé felt herself blush, unused to positive reinforcement. “Of course I passed! What else would you expect of the daughter of the Mayor of Paris?”

-click- “Petty self-aggrandizement, selfishness, egocentric narcissism--", Oh-One began a litany of Chloé’s previous behavior.

“Shut it, tin can!”, Chloé flared, stabbing an accusatory finger at the automaton. “You goddamn know I’m not that bad anymore!”

Atticus placed a paw on Chloé’s leg to get her attention. “May I suggest that you recognise your own remarkable achievements, rather than mentioning your father’s societal position?”

Chloé paused, looking into the eyes of her friend. Tucking a wayward strand of blonde hair behind her ear, she nodded. “You’re right. I’ve gotta stop relying on daddy to solve all my problems. And on the Train, he can't. Hell, nobody even knows where Paris is half the time.”

“It does sound like a rather amazing place", Atticus admitted, walking beside Chloé as they crossed the rattling catwalk to the next car.

Chloé stopped, hand resting on the brazen door handles, thinking. She turned, sat of the platform floor, and started rummaging through her purse. “Oh this is utterly ridiculous! Where is it?!”, she muttered as sorted through the meagre contents. “Oh…merde! The sea water made a mess of this too!”, Chloé complained, pulling a wrinkled and salt-stained post card of the Paris skyline out of her purse.

She leaned over, pointing out the notable features, and explained that hotel she had lived in was just out of frame in the picture.

“I was going to use this a part of a cruel prank on Marinette", Chloé confessed. “That seems so petty now. So…I’d like you to have it, Atticus. As a reminder. For when I…that is, if I ever…”

Atticus nodded solemnly. “It would be an honour. It shall grace my throne room and every time I see it, it will remind me of one of two of the bravest people I have ever encountered.”

“I’m not brave", Chloé demurred, fidgeting. “May I?”, she indicated Atticus’ crown.

“Oh, by all means!”, Atticus nodded, watching as Chloé tucked the postcard inside the crown, before returning it to rest on the king's head.

Chloé rose, dusting herself off, and turned to open the doors, entering an ornate foyer of exquisitely hand carved maple paneling stained a rich gunstock brown, oiled and polished. Intricate geometric intarsia decorated the floor, and gilt repoussé ceiling panels reflected tastefully concealed indirect lighting.

“You will most certainly not be announced to the August Presence unless and until one is appropriately attired!”, a cobalt-liveried and coifed attendant sneered at Chloé.

“And I’m just supposed to stand here and do exactly what about it?”, Chloé snapped out of habit.

The attendant rolled their eyes in exasperation. “Simply impossible. Common rabble have more respect.”

Chloé fumed.

“You will announce that King Atticus of Corginia will not tolerate having his most trusted companion dismissed so unjustly out of hand. Please convey to the August Presence that we would entertain the possibility of an audience once appropriate attire has been provided”, Atticus intervened.

Chastised, the attendant left the foyer via cunningly concealed door.

“Didn't you just tell me not to name drop?”, Chloé smirked.

“This is one of those rare exceptions.”

Chloé crossed her arms, snickering. “Uh-huh.”

The attendant reappeared, briskly crossed the foyer to open another concealed portal and summoned Chloé with a contemptuous wave.   
As soon as Chloé had entered the adjoining chamber, expressionless servants briskly, efficiently undressed her, carrying off her clothes.

“Hey!”, Chloé protested.

“Your…plebian rags…will be laundered and mended. Your bath awaits.”

Chivvied onwards, Chloé entered a literal steam bath, sweat breaking out on her golden-tinted skin in moments. Just when she was certain they attendant intended to let her roast, Chloé was escorted to the next room, cooler but still warm, sluiced with buckets of warm water and then scrubbed with soapy brushes and sponges, sluiced off again, washed thoroughly with silky-soft cloths, sluiced off with hotter water, and led to a low table.

Chloé swallowed hard as she was very professionally, very quickly utterly depilated of every follicle except her eyebrows, lashes, and head hair, sucking in and holding her breath, not daring to so much as twitch as her now rather unkempt Brazilian was removed with neat strokes of a cut-throat straight razor.

Skin tingling and hypersensitive, Chloé was slathered with oil and fine powder, massaged, and then strigiled clean, then subjected to a second round of buckets and scrubbing, this time including a brisk shampooing of her hair, before being almost thrown into a pool of icy water. 

“What the fuck?!”, Chloé shrieked, surfacing.

The attendant smirked. “Swim through the opening. Your toilette awaits.”

Chloé shivered as more expressionless servants briskly towelled her dry.

“Have you voided?”, the attendant asked, dispassionately inspecting their fingernails.

“Excuse me?!”

The attendant pointed at a flush toilet and bidet. “Attend to your needs. One must be free of all uncleanliness in the August Presence.”

“A little privacy, maybe?!”

The attendant smiled predatorily. “We can always…assist matters if needed.”

Chloé stalked over to the indicated area, perching, trying to cover herself up as much as possible. “Goddamn creepy doll-faced perverts", she muttered darkly.

Once finished, humiliated, Chloé sat rigid as her hair was combed and brushed, neatly braided and arranged, and a light floral scent sparingly applied.

A fine light linen chemise was pulled over her head, tugged past her hips. White silk stockings rolled up her legs, gartered in place, and corset neatly laced on. Petticoat, crinolines, underdress, followed by a plaqueted black crepe silk gown with a square neckline cut so low Chloé blushed. Black silk slippers completed the ensemble.

Make-up was applied with a deft touch, almost invisible, but enhancing her long lashes and pale blue eyes. Then she was whisked to an ante-chamber of the same gunstock maple paneling.

There was no sign of Atticus or Oh-One.

The attendant sniffed. “Almost presentable. What is your lineage?”

“Uh, my father is Andre Bourgeois, Mayor of Paris, and my…mother is Audrey Bourgeois. She’s a fashion designer”, Chloé explained, embarrassed for some indefinable reason.

With a weary sigh, and an expression she recognised from the family butler, the attendant opened the door into the chamber of the August Presence.

Gold. Everywhere. On every surface. Roof. Floor. Walls. The walls decorated with sweeping serried flows of miniature arches.

This wasn’t excess or ostentatious display.

This was an expression of absolute, unrivaled power.

“Chloé Bourgeois, dilletante", the attendant announced, bowing themselves out of the room.

In the center of the room was a simple throne of age-darkened red lacquered wood, occupied by a wizened, spidery crone, only her seamed and wrinkled face visible in a sea of shrouded black robes, who curtly motioned for Chloé to approach with an imperious flick of one dry, withered hand.

Atticus, King of Corginia sat nearby, crown polished and glinting, his coat clean and shining. Oh-one occupied a socket near the doors Chloé had entered through.

A cobalt-uniformed major domo behind and to the right of the crone spoke, quietly and distinctly.

“You are in the August Presence of the Reverend Inquisitor Pursuivant. Be humbled before them.”

Chloé curtsied before kneeling on a thin cushion in front of the throne, far too close to the crone for comfort.

“We will make this brief, child. You will be tested. Failure will be punished. Do you understand?”

Chloé nodded, intimidated.

“Speak up, child!”

“Yes, I understand”, Chloé responded.

“Show us your hand", the Reverend Inquisitor commanded.

Chloé did as she was told, the old woman scoffing quietly at the displayed number before removing a palm-length square of metal from the folds of her robes, opening it into a metal box with one open side, the interior far darker than it had any right to be, holding it up in her left hand.

Atticus sat nearby, utterly still, anxious as he watched Chloé.

The Reverend Inquisitor waved her free hand, and two attendants carried out an object draped with cobalt silk, set it down, and swept aside the cloth revealing a tall gilt framed mirror containing Chloé’s reflection.

“Place your hand in the box, Chloé Bourgeois.”

Chloé shivered, afraid.

“Do it!”, the whipcrack voice commanded.

Chloé shoved her right hand in the box.

“We are in contact with Reflection Enforcement. Should you remove your hand from the box, the mirror will be destroyed, and your reflection ground into powder. Endure, and your reflection continues to exist. That is your test.”

A faint, tickling, prickly spider-step of sensation on her right hand.

Itching.

Sharp tingling.

Unpleasant warmth. Building. Increasing.

Chloé gasped. “Ohhhh. Oh, it hurts!”

“Withdraw that hand and your reflection dies!”

Heat. Pain. Burning.

Worse than burning.

Agony. White heat searing flesh, crisping skin, igniting nerves.

Chloé moaned, biting the knuckles of her other hand. She could hear weeping, pleading. “Stop! Make it stop! She never did anything to you! Just stop it! Please!!”, Chloé's reflection begged.

“Don’t you hurt her!”, Chloé snarled. “Don’t you—Ahhh! Fuck that hurts!!”—Don’t you dare—Ah, FUCK!!FUCK!! GODDAMN FUCK!!—Don’t you dare fucking touch her! I’ll fucking kill every goddamn one of you if you—Ahhhhh!! Fuck!! Fucķ!! My fucking hand!!—OH, FUCK!! I’LL KILL YOU!! I'LL FUCKING MURDER YOU IN YOUR GODDAM SLEEP! LET! HER! GOOOOOO!!”, Chloé shrieked, eyes clenched, tears dripping off her chin.

“ENOUGH!!” the crone bellowed, wrenching the box off Chloé’s extremity.

The pain vanished. Switched off.

Chloé shuddered, gasping, the memory of fire searing her mind.

“Open your eyes.”

“Fuck You.”

“Don’t be impertinent”, the crone admonished, gently.

Chloé opened her eyes. Her hand was unblemished.

“You’re one of a very few who have ever exceeded the limits of this test, child.”

Chloé stared at the old woman. “I passed your test.”

“You. Let. Her. Go.” Chloé’s tone carried a promise of retribution as she stood up.

The crone waved away the attendants, who carried the mirror out of the throne room.

“Your possessions will be returned to you. You and your companions may leave at any time.”

Chloé leaned over the old woman. Whispering.

“If I look in a mirror, and she’s not there, I swear by everything you fear, you’ll be the last one I kill. Slowly.”

*-*-*

Standing on the car platform in the breeze, Atticus looked up at Chloé.

“There are times when you are positively terrifying.”

Chloé glanced at Atticus, then looked at her hand, flexing it, the green numbers flickering.

{153}


	11. The Archive Car

Three days after Chloé had bid a heartfelt farewell to Atticus of Corginia after seeing him back to his kingdom, and receiving a hero's welcome, Chloé was glaring at one of her least favorite denizens of the Train.

The Cat smiled at Chloé, looking exceptionally self-satisfied as she sat on the wide counter ledge of the dark cherry reception desk in the entrance mezzanine that looked into the ranked orderliness of a scholarly library.

“Enchantée to see you again so soon, kitten", the Cat purred smugly. “I trust you’ve found your sojourn thus far enlightening.”

Chloé groaned quietly to herself and counted to twenty. In English. Oh-One stood nearby, silently observing. “What do you want?”

The Cat tutted disappointment. “You misunderstand, kitten. I’m not trying to sell you anything, and I’m certainly not trying to deceive you or mislead you.”

“You’ll pardon me if I find that hard to believe", Chloé snorted, crossing her arms.

“I know we might have rubbed each other the wrong way once or twice before", the Cat conceded, “And to make amends, I’m here with some information you might find very beneficial.”

Chloé arched an eyebrow skeptically. “Uh-huh… What will it cost me?”

The Cat blinked. “Why, nothing at all.”

Silence greeted the Cat's pronouncement.

“Oh, very well. The Apex has put quite the pretty penny on your head, kitten. It could prove very tempting.” The Cat saw the dark look in Chloé’s eye. “N-not that I would dare consider crossing the very capable person who defeated Erle--"

“We’re done here", Chloé announced, lifting the Cat bodily and tossing her out the door, closing it firmly. Leaning her forehead against the doors, Chloé sighed. The sound of Erlea's last breath haunted her.

Turning around and studying the interior of the car, Chloé muttered to herself as she descended the short flight of stairs to the library proper, once-white flats scuffing green baize carpet. “Might as well go and see what fresh hell awaits me…”

Books.

Nothing but books on shelves. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Some of them very old.

‘Just how long have people been arriving on the Train?’, Chloé thought to herself. ‘Where did it start? How?’

Chloé poked along through the shelves, staring at the spines of the books. All cloth or leatherbound hardcover, some with intricate tooling, others really quite plain. But every single one of them bearing a name.

Realization.

“Passengers", Chloé said aloud. “Every one of these books are about other Passengers!”

She started searching the stacks, looking for famous people, names from history. Some names were almost familiar, tugging at her memory. Near the exit doors (which predictably remained stubbornly closed when she tried the handles), Chloé found a small, thin green volume, the name on the spine very familiar.

“Tulip Olsen”, Chloé read aloud. Atticus' friend, she remembered.

Was this Tulip’s diary? Her biography compiled by the Train staff? Something else? Part of Chloé desperately wanted to just put the book back. The part of her that usually instigated no end of drama in her pre-Passenger life urged her to open the cover and snoop.

Leaning against the row of shelves opposite, Chloé opened the book…

*-*-*

“My name is Tulip Olsen”, read the first sentence printed in a neat feminine hand. “I’m thirteen years old, and I like coding and onions.

I’m on this stupid Train where nothing is logical or makes sense because of my parents divorce.

No.

That’s not right. 

I’m on this train because I got angry at my parents when they both had lots of grown-up things on their mind that I didn’t know about, and I snuck out of the house to try to walk from North Branch, Minnesota to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for a video game coding weekend I really didn't want to miss.

My mom was supposed to drive me, but she had to work, so she told my dad, who forgot which days the coding weekend was on.

I became a Passenger when I hopped on what I thought was just a regular freight train that had stopped, hoping to not have to miss the entire weekend because I tried to walk more than three hundred and twenty miles by myself. Which, when you put it that way was a really dumb idea.

The Train is really weird. And scary. And I'm lonely. I miss mom. And Mikayla.

But it’s not all bad. I’ve made some great friends on the Train. Like Atticus, King of Corginia. He a talking Corgi. Very regal. Who loves tummy rubs (he says I give the best tummy rubs)… “

*-*-*

Chloé pushed off from the shelves, still reading, half watching where she was going, looking for a proper place to sit and read, finding a comfortable upholstered wooden arm chair in front of a pale wooden table, putting her feet up on the rungs of a second chair, completely absorbed in the adventures and self-reflection of a young woman in a very similar situation.

Halfway through the book, Chloé realized she was hungry, and went to see if there was any food or vending machines as there had been in the rare hostel cars, and was rewarded with a drink vending machine, as well as one that dispensed sandwiches. The sandwich was Black Forest ham with Swiss and Red Leicester cheeses, rather pleasant actually. The beverage was a sweet sparkling apple cider. Thus fortified, she returned to her reading.

An hour or two later, Chloé had finished both her meal and the book, and was feeling relaxed and slightly sleepy. She drained the last tepid sip from the can, wondering if she could find some place to take a nap. She stood up, feeling giddy and slightly wobbly.

“Thish…This isn’t right”, she said, looking at the drink can with suspicion. “Oh crap…”

‘10% ABV’ read the can.

“Shit", Chloé giggled. “ ’M drunk.”

A memory from almost useless Latin language lessons drifted unbidden to Chloé’s mind. “In vino veritas”, she nodded. “In wine, truth.”

Tulip had stumbled into the Train when she was in acute emotional distress, spending at least six months aboard before writing her book. She had parents who cared about her, and were going through some difficult times. There were definite similarities in their situations, but also glaring differences. Tulip had an almost normal relationship with her mother, whereas Chloé, as much as she wanted her mother’s approval, could barely stand to be in the same room with her.

“Yeah”, Chloé sighed to herself. “When, if, I ever get off this Train, I’m gonna have to get some therapy.”

Wandering through the stacks, Chloé found a padded bench in a curtained window that overlooked the deep rust wasteland. It would do yeoman service for a nap. There was no way she was going to tackle opening the doors and going to the next car while she had a snoot-full.

‘I wonder what it’s like in North Branch, Minnesota’, Chloé thought to herself as she drifted off to sleep.


	12. The Asylum Car

The better part of seven weeks had passed since Chloé Bourgeois had arrived in the quirky seaside village filled with Italianate architecture, columns, arches, and classically themed statuary. Greenspace was a tasteful riot of hedges, topiary, lawns, formal gardens, stately ordered groves and orchards, and a shoulder-height hedge maze that Chloé had thus far pointedly avoided and ignored. Streets were narrow, barely wide enough to allow the small canopy-topped electric taxi carts to pass each other. Most traffic was on foot, occupying the numerous brick and stone-paved paths.

The weather was usually mild, even pleasant, if somewhat chill early in the morning, varying little from day to day, with a breeze off the sea in the afternoons and evenings.

Village inhabitants were remarkable only in their quaint anonymity, greeting Chloé and each other with a cheery “Be Well!”

Silent and efficient overall-clad maintenance workers Chloé saw occasionally reminded her all too much of the servants employed by the Reverend Inquisitor Pursuivant.

There were shops (dismal selection, but amusing for their decades old vintage offerings), cafés and restaurants (pedestrian fare, edible, even tasty, but uninspired. Absolutely none of the chefs pretended to have ever even heard of sushi. Utterly ridiculous, of course), an offset press newspaper, and tasteful, blandly cheerful music playing over public address speakers.

Chloé was frequently amused when she saw the signs posted on the lawns that read ‘Walk on Grass', encouraging a public display of acceptable anarchy. Sometimes she indulged.

She’d moved into a furnished small, charming bachelor suite with a minimal balcony on the second floor of a pale yellow brick three-storey walk-up apartment building, spending her time wandering the village, shopping, reading the very out-of-date offerings from the library, sleeping, and chatting with the polite if oddly distant village inhabitants.

No-one asked Chloé where she came from, or appeared to care. People kept themselves to themselves, gathering socially for weekly dances and semi-formal parties. As long as she wore the badge that displayed the number matching the one glowing in her palm, no one asked Chloé to even pay for her shopping. With the exception of the maintenance workers, everyone wore a similar numbered badge. She was the only person with a number glowing in the palm of her hand.

Chloé found herself frequently sitting at a table on a wide paved patio that overlooked a square marked out as, and used for, living chess games, with villagers identifying which piece they represented with a staff tipped with the appropriate piece. Unusually, both sides were white, which made following a game in progress something of a trial.

Games usually ended in a quiet draw.

This morning, after a swim in the indoor pool, Chloé had dressed in a comfortably soft pineapple yellow knit long-sleeved mini-dress with white piping at the seams her mother would have been utterly appalled to see, let alone allow her only child to wear in public. White gladiator sandals wrapped around Chloé’s toned dancers calves. She smiled to herself as she sipped her coffee from a fine China cup, knowing she was wearing only the mini-dress.

It had been the better part of seven weeks since she’d seen or heard from Oh-One. It had been five weeks since she’d thought about finding the exit doors. And her reflection had been remarkably well-behaved, accurately mirroring her every move.

“Excuse me", the smoky, slightly sonorous British accent interrupted Chloé’s thoughts. “Were you expecting anybody else, or may I sit here?”, the older, still attractive man in the dark blue sweater jacket with white piping on the collar inquired, the village newspaper tucked under his arm, coffee cup in hand. His badge, pinned to the left breast of his jacket, displayed the number ‘6'.

Chloé nodded politely, placing her coffee cup on it's saucer. “Please.”

He sat, glancing at the front of the folded paper. A sip of his coffee, and he smiled at Chloé. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“I guess so", Chloé replied. “I don’t remember seeing you around.”

“I mostly keep to myself.”

“Have you been here long?”, Chloé inquired, glancing at the man’s numbered badge.

He smiled at a private joke. “Long enough.”

Slightly strained silence as they regarded each other.

“You’re not like the other jammers.”

Chloé blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You're younger, don’t seem to have a plan, as much as any jammer ever has a plan”, the man observed.

“Maybe because I’m not a ‘jammer', whatever those are."

The man nodded, considering.

“Perhaps you’re like me", he offered. “An unwilling guest of our unseen hosts.”

“You seem to have settled in", Chloé said.

He shrugged, smirking ironically. “An adaptation necessary to playing the long game.”

Another passage of silence. Chloé noted the villagers were assembling on the paved living chess board in ones and twos, selecting which piece they would represent and donning multicolored capes before standing on the appropriate starting square for their piece.

Her table-mate glanced at the board on the table between them, set up and waiting when Chloé had seated herself earlier. “Would you care for a game?”

“It might be amusing”, Chloé smiled primly. Both sides were a brilliant red.

“Ladies first”, her challenger politely offered.

Not having played much, Chloé started with the classic Bishop’s Opening, watching her opponent, not just how he played the game (conservatively), but his body language before each move. He’d respond to her moves after careful consideration, studying the various options, occasionally taking chances that rewarded him several moves later.

He started taking more pieces than Chloé, not many, true, but enough that a draw was now impossible. Both queens had come into play relatively early and were still on the board.

Chloé decided to take a risk, moving what had been her opponents queen to force his king to move. “Check.”

He glanced at her as she sat there, looking smug, just realizing the neat trap Chloé had just sprung.

“That was…unconventional.”

Chloé shrugged. “I learned from my father.”

The gentleman raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to guess he’s a politician.”

“Mayor of Paris. Or he was when I boarded the Train”, Chloé nodded. “That may have changed.”

Chloé’s companion studied the board. Then used her own pawn to take her king. “Checkmate.”

Chloé grinned. “You sneaky bastard", she complimented him.

“You accept defeat?”

“Just this once”, Chloé mused, studying the chessboard. Her red queen deceit had failed, and reprisal in kind had been swift and justified. She picked up the traitorous red queen, a tight lipped smile of regret on her lips. “It was a risky gambit that failed before.”

“Then why repeat it?”

“To see if I had learned anything?”

“Have you?”

Chloé paused, tapping the queen on her lower lip in thought.

“I’d like to think so", she finally replied, tucking the red queen in her purse as she stood. “Thank you for a most enjoyable game and a valuable lesson.”

He leaned back in his chair, fingers of one hand tapping his lips, coolly studying Chloé. “And what lesson is that?”

Chloé moved the pawn that had taken her king the length of the board to take her opponents king in turn, tipping it off the board.

“Betrayal has its price. Excuse me. I’m rather tired all of a sudden.”

The man nodded, looking at her through the loop of thumb and index finger of the ‘Okay' hand signal. “Be seeing you", he said ironically in the not-at-all creepy village custom.

*-*-*

Chloé stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

“It's a trap”, she said. “A comfortable, boring, enticing, complacency inducing trap.”

Chloé leaned forward, forehead pressing to the mirror, cool glass soothing a raging headache.

“And you’re not her. You’re just a reflection. God, please let her be alright. No more. No more suffering because of me.”

Chloé left the small bathroom, turning off the light. “Goodnight, whoever you are. I’ll leave the door open so you can see the moonlight.”

Opening the curtains to let in the moonlight as promised, Chloé went to bed.

*-*-*

Breakfast was modest, taken in the café across the narrow street from her apartment, just coffee and a cheese croissant. Then packing her old clothes, the pineapple-yellow minidress, and one more change of clothes into a small rucksack, dressed in black knit slacks, white canvas deck shoes, and a beige turtle-neck, numbered badge pinned in place, Chloé went looking for the exit.

The only places she hadn’t been was the hedge maze, but even a cursory inspection from outside showed no sign of the exit doors, and the building the villagers called the Green Dome, due to its primary feature, a verdigris copper-clad dome.

Chloé entered the imposing structure, ignoring the receptionist, and opened the office door marked simply ‘Number 2', the occupant being the most quietly feared person in the village, who looked up from behind her desk as Chloé barged in.

“Can I help you?”, Number 2 inquired politely, sweeping a lock of pale blonde bangs going white out of her eyes.

“Where’s the exit?”, Chloé asked.

“Are you unhappy with your accommodations, Number 87?”

“My name is Chloé, and I want to go home.”

“If you’re going to be rude and unreasonable, Number 87, I see no point in further conversation. Good morning.”

Chloé fumed, and then smiled so sweetly that teeth would have rotted. “Number 2?”

“Yes?”

“You certainly are!”, Chloé sniped as she flounced out.

The man wearing the badge numbered ‘6' fell into step beside Chloé as she left the Green Dome. “I should have warned you that Number 2 can be rather difficult.”

Chloé stopped on the sidewalk, gauging the man’s intentions. “You’ve been here a long time.”

He nodded, cautious.

“You’ve probably tried to leave dozens of times, am I right?”

Another cautious nod in agreement.

“Have you ever found doors that go nowhere?”

“Perhaps…”

“Where are they?”

Number 6 put one fist on his hip, the other hand to his chin, weighing the odds. “In the amusement parlour Hall of Mirrors”, he eventually answered. “I advise caution. Not all is as it seems in there.”

Chloé smirked. “I’m getting used to mirrors that can’t be trusted.”

Minutes later, Chloé was threading her way through the darkened labyrinth of multiple reflections, some incredibly warped and distorted under the random glare of pink and green spotlights that lent a surreal glow to the interior, her right hand trailing on the smooth vertical surfaces, wary of any gaps obscured by a trick of angle. It didn’t take long to find the red double doors.

Chloé knew they were real because Oh-One waited stoic and silent beside them.

-click- “Are you ready to resume your journey, Passenger Chloé Bourgeois?”

Chloé nodded, opening the exit door. “Yeah.”


	13. The Winter Car

There was just enough freshly fallen snow on the ground to almost cover the last few tufts of faded autumn grass and softly crunch underfoot. The sky was a pale citrine shade of early morning cloud in the distance, and her breath puffed in quiet billowing wisps. Ordered ranks of bare-limbed poplar marched in still tableau along the perimeter of the field.

Measured silence that made her heart ache with longing to have someone to share this moment with.

It was chill enough that Chloé was glad to have put on the extra if somewhat meagre layers of clothing she’d brought with her from the Village.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, Chloé asked.

-click- “That is a subjective definition based upon observational data relevant only to Passenger Chloé Bourgeois”, Oh-One replied laconically.

Chloé scowled. “You have no poetry in your soul, that’s your problem!”

-click- “As an autonomous construct, the concept of a soul is irrelevant to me.”

Shaking her head, Chloé tucked her hands in her pockets and pointedly ignored her mechanical companion as she walked through the snow, determined to not let the tin-can disturb her pleasant mood.

Slipping through the windbreak created by the trees, Chloé spied a clump of upright figures in the middle distance to her right, all standing silent and still, some dozen or so meters away from a three-walled shack with a sloping roof. Mildly curious, Chloé approached openly, bearing caution in mind, ready to bolt for cover if the situation changed.

Drawing closer, Chloé realized that the figures were snowmen, clustered in a loose crescent near a wooden bench placed in front of the shelter which had old straw strewn on the dirt floor. A dusky-skinned young woman with a riot of tightly curled dark hair perched on the slats of the bench, feet tucked under the seat, toes of her pink winter boots in the dirt, hunched in on herself in a matching pink down jacket, the white fur-trimmed hood thrown back.

“Bonjour!”, Chloé greeted the young woman. “Je m'appelle Chloé.”

“Go ‘way.”

“Ah. Américaine! Bon!”, Chloé grinned.

“I said ‘Go away’!”

A flash of irritation had Chloé turned away, taking an almost half step in angry dismissal before she stopped.

“No.”

“Didn’t you hear me! I wanna be left alone!”

Chloé turned back, holding out her right hand, palm up, numbers glowing pale green.

{79}

“Like I said, My name is Chloé. The tin can is Oh-One. And I'm a Passenger. Just like you’re a Passenger, right?”

Hesitantly, more than a bit suspicious, the girl on the bench held up her right palm. Her number read {53}

Chloé nodded politely. “How long have you been on the Train?”

A shrug. “Couple hours, maybe. Don’t matter. Ain’t going home.”

Chloé scoffed. “You’ll be off the Train before I will.”

“I said I ain’t going home!”

Chloé sat on the bench beside the young woman, uninvited. “Did I say anything about going home? No.”

Amber eyes glared at Chloé.

“What’s your name?”

“What do you care?!”

Chloé closed her eyes, counting silently to ten. In Latin. “I’m being polite. You should try it”, Chloé advised tightly. “Being a bitch to everyone you meet gets you nowhere.”

“Shona."

Chloé side-eyed the young woman. “Nice to meet you, Shona.”

“You talk funny.”

“That’s because I’m French.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”, Shona bristled.

Chloé extended her legs, crossed at the ankles. “I’m not here to impress you.”

“So why are you here? To piss me off when I aksed you to leave me alone?”

“I’m here because I’m a fucking mess”, Chloé admitted honestly.

Shona scoffed. “Girl so pretty, all up in herself, got a mouth like a New York sailor.”

“You have no idea…”, Chloé deadpanned.

They two sat in silence for a moment.

“How old are you?”, Shona asked.

Chloé shrugged. “Don’t know. Not really. Somewhere between fifteen and eighteen. Mom and birthdays weren’t a thing.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“My mother is a gold plated bitch”, Chloé shrugged.

“Jesus. And I thought my momma was bad…”

Chloé glanced at Shona.

Shona clasped her hands together, looking down at the snow. “She don’t beat me or nuthin'. She just yells at me. Alla time. I can’t do nuthin' right for her. If I take another helpin' of meatloaf, she says I’m gonna be a fattie, but if I don’t eat, she tells me I’m wastin' food. So I’m hungry, alla time. I stay in my room, try to be outta her way, but she says I’m chattin' up boys on my phone, so she says to hand it over to ‘spect it. Ain’t got but three numbers on my phone. Ain’t got no friends, count-a my momma being so mean alla time.”

Shona paused.

“And why the hell am I spillin' my guts to a white girl I met not ten minutes ago in the middle of goddamn nowhere?!”, she exclaimed.

Chloé shrugged, hands still in her sweater pockets. “Maybe because as far as you know, you’ll never see me again. I’d be the perfect confessor.”

“You talk like you’re rich.”

“I am. Was.” Chloé shrugged again. “It’s…complicated.”

“Your momma?”

Chloé nodded. “And daddy. He’s the mayor of Paris. Or was. We own an exclusive hotel across the river from the Tour Eiffel. Two blocks away from the best boulangerie in the city.”

“You a goddamn princess!”

Chloé pulled a face. “Ugh. Please don’t. I was an insufferable spoiled brat who went out of her way to make everyone around her as miserable as I was.”

Another moment of silence.

“Got a boyfrien’?”

Chloé shook her head. “Non. A crush. Who’s dating someone else.”

“Men suck.” Shona held up her fist in solidarity. Chloé paused for a moment, then bumped fists.

“Boy troubles are the reason you’re on the Train?”

Shona’s tough façade held for only a moment before she sniffled hard. “I hate him!”

“He dumped you?”

“We…fooled around. He said if we didn't, then I didn't really love him!” Shona lamented, rocking back and forth. “He was in my class, we only ever talked at school, I told him I can’t call or text or nuthin' on ‘counta momma, so we passed notes in th' hallway. I snuck outa th' house, met him in th' park, ‘n we fooled around. Come Monday mornin', he won’t even look at me.”

Bitter tears rolled down Shona’s cheeks. “I ain't never gonna fall in love, ever again!”

Chloé rose from the bench, rummaging in the depths of the three-walled shack, and returned carrying a broken axe handle. She held it out to Shona.

“What ya ‘spect me to do with that?”, Shona sniffled.

Chloé nodded at the snowmen. “Pick one.”

Shona took the offered axe handle, standing. “And do what?”

Leaning close, Chloé whispered in Shona’s ear. “The bastard who dumped you is standing right there. No one will ever know.”

Shona stood behind one of the snowmen, and swung the axe handle uncertainty, impacting with a muted crunch of compacted snow.

“He’s laughing at you. That was utterly ridiculous.“

Shona swung harder, knocking a lump of snow off.

“Merde! Hit the bastard, not tickle him!”, Chloé taunted.

Shona howled in rage, the axe handle battering the snowman, pounding it into fragments as she gave vent to her betrayal and frustration, the stout hardwood bludgeoning the fragments into shards, the shards into powder.

Finally, spent, exhausted, crying quietly, Shona's shoulders slumped, axe handle dropping from her fingertips into the trampled snow.

A tentative touch before Chloé embraced Shona, who clung to the Parisian girl.

“I know what it’s like, not having anyone to talk to. This was probably the safest way for you to let go of all that anger”, Chloé murmured, leading Shona back to the bench.

Shona sniffled, wiping away a tear. “Thanks”, she half-smiled at the blonde. “Still not gonna fall in love again.”

Chloé shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s your life, live it your way. Get a cat if you want.”

A fleeting bright grin from Shona. “You’re alright for a white girl.”

“Don’t let that get around. You’ll ruin my reputation as a callous bitch”, Chloé grinned.

“Any advice?”

“Don’t date outside your species.”

“I meant about the Train, smartass”, Shona smiled.

Chloé ticked off points on her fingers. “Don’t trust the Cat if you meet her. Mirrors are…interesting. Corginia is amazing. Avoid those Apex assholes. Do Not Get Off The Train if it stops.”

“How long you been on the Train?”, Shona inquired.

Chloé took a moment to think about it. “Hmm. Months? Seven or eight at least.”

Startled disbelief in Shona’s expression.

Chloé held up her palm. “My number was almost nine hundred when I woke up here.”

“Damn.”

“Still have your cell phone?”, Chloé asked.

“Yeah?” Shona dug the device out of her pocket. “Won’t do you no good. Ain’t got no signal.”

“All you have to do is turn it on and open your contacts”, Chloé smiled.

Shona did as requested, then handed the cell to Chloé, who entered her own number and contact information before taking two selfies, one of them with her arm around Shona.

“What?”

“If your mother ever raises her voice to you again, or that utterly ridiculous boy contacts you, call me. I’ll answer.” Chloé handed the phone back. “Do you think you'll be alright?”

Shona shook her head. “No. But I’m a bit better, thanks to you, Chloé.”

Chloé stood up. “Let’s go find the exit doors. I’m cold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! A wee hiatus due to writers block, but the misadventure continues!


	14. The Celebration Car

Shona and Chloé parted company two weeks later when Shona said she wanted to explore the twisting backstreets and labyrinthine staircases of what the two girls had agreed to call the MC Escher car. Chloé sniffled, and hugged the American, telling her to be careful, and to call as soon as she had departed the Train. Shona refused to promise, but did reassure Chloé that no matter what, Chloé would always be remembered as a friend.

“You remind me of a classmate”, Chloé nodded. “Alya Cesaire. Martiniquan and ridiculously good-looking. You’d give her serious competition in the sassy and stubborn categories.”

One more hug, then Chloé opened the doors and she and Oh-One stepped out onto the car end platform. Wind stirred the warm air as the Train rumbled through the Wasteland’s eternal twilight, and Chloé took a moment to lean on the railing on folded arms, introspective, the breeze causing wisps of her long blonde hair to flutter like fine silken pennants.

“I hate goodbyes.”

-click- “This is a personal observation, Passenger Chloé Bourgeois?”

Chloé nodded, sighing. “Goodbyes hurt. Emotionally. I used to think if I kept people away, kept them from getting close to me, I wouldn’t have to ever say goodbye to them.” She stared out into the passing barren landscape. “I didn’t realize what a lonely life that creates.”

She straightened, adjusted her yellow cardigan, and crossed the rattling catwalk between cars to stand in the windshadow to comb her hair and re-do her ponytail.

“Mother and Daddy always went on about how you never get a second chance to make a first impression”, Chloé noted before opening and stepping through the doors into the next car.

A wave of sound, upbeat retro-wave dance music and an enthusiastic chorus of cheers of greeting welcomed Chloé.

*-*-*

She’d entered what could only be a large, boisterous and decently attended house party, more or less familiar in tone and appearance to ones portrayed in dozens of cinema presentations, especially American imports. The celebrants were definitely diverse in nature and appearance, some attired in fancy dress costume, pleasantly rowdy.

“Hi!”, a frizzy ginger-haired young woman with green eyes behind frameless glasses only slightly shouted over the music in introduction. “Where ya from?”

“Paris?”, Chloé replied at a similar volume.

“Cool! Come on in, grab some food and a drink if you want. Dance floor is open if that’s your thing, pool is out back, but the hot-tub is pretty crowded.”

“What’s the occasion?”, Chloé grinned.

“Nothing! Everything! Anything!”, the redhead enthused, arms thrown wide. “It’s a party! Who needs a reason?”

Chloé couldn't argue that kind of thinking. She wandered in the direction of the dining room and kitchen, passing bowls of popcorn, varieties of crisps, pretzels, and platters of canapés’ and petite-fours randomly placed on end tables and other convenient horizontal surfaces in favor of offerings on the buffet tables, which held low stacks of pizza delivery boxes, paper buckets of deep-fried poultry, cheese and sausage plates, varieties of pickles, cut fresh fruit, and amazingly, cheese fondue and trays of sushi and sashimi.

Chloé filled a paper plate with a polite amount of food, and plucked a semi-familiar can of apple cider out of an ice-filled plastic tub, then retreated to a slightly quieter corner to sit and observe while she consumed her meal.

Oh-One had stationed himself near the sound system, almost blending in with the audio technology. 

“Had the grand tour yet?”

Chloé paused, a kappa roll half-way in her mouth. “Hah?”, she inquired eloquently at the blue-haired androgynous figure in the violet and yellow plaid flannel shirt who had perched themselves unannounced on the wide arm of the chair Chloé occupied.

“I’m Vee. Pleased-ta-meetcha!”, they said, extending their right hand in introduction, green numerals {257} glowing in their palm. “What're your digits?”

“Uh, Chloé. Bonjour”, shaking the offered hand, releasing, then turning her own hand to display her number.

{69} 

Vee grinned. “Oh jeez! That's…”

“Yeah", Chloé nodded, cheeks colouring.

“So, anyway, the grand tour", Vee continued, deliberately sidestepping the opportunity to engage in double entendre flirtation. “Downstairs in the rec room there’s a poker table, billiard table, and video games. Dancing, random Lotharios on the make, kitchen on the main floor, which also has the library where you can actually hold a conversation without shouting, pool and hot-tub out back, basketball hoop over the garage door, ping-pong table in the garage, and shinny street-hockey out front. Second floor has bedrooms, third floor has bedrooms quiet enough you can actually get some sleep.”

“How long has this party been going?”, Chloé inquired, looking at the crowd.

“No idea”, Vee shrugged. “I’ve been here almost two weeks, just hanging out, and it never really winds down.”

Chloé nodded, sipping her cider. It might be fun to indulge for a little while, but constant indulgence would severely grate on her nerves far too soon. “How many Passengers are here?”

“You’re the tenth one I’ve met?”

Chloé raised an eyebrow. “That many?”

“They come and go. Anyway, I’m gonna circulate. Try the pizza.”

“It was nice to meet you, Vee.”

Chloé watched for a moment as Vee departed, finishing her meal. As lively as the party was, Chloé wasn’t in the mood. Being surrounded by people she didn’t know only made her feel her loneliness even more acutely. Chloé returned to the kitchen to deposit her refuse in the bin and retrieve a second tin of cider, idly sipping at it as she meandered through the partiers, stepping out the patio doors to gaze at the antics in the pool as she leaned against a post supporting the portico.

A presence at her elbow, not Oh-One.

A sigh, and Chloé turned to face the person.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d really rather not do this”, Chloé apologized.

“Do what?”, the blue-skinned woman with black hair in a waist-length ponytail asked. Her genie costume was on point.

“I’m not looking to get high, or hook up, or whatever it is your offering. All I really want right now is to get some sleep and move on”, Chloé explained.

Genie-woman smirked. “Interesting. You’re the only person at this little soiree who’s been completely honest.”

Chloé cut a distrustful glare at the woman. “Whatever you’re up to, I don’t want any part of it. If you're Apex, I’m not afraid to fuck you up, right here, right now.”

“Relax, Chloé, I’m not your enemy", genie-woman grinned.

Chloé shifted, nerves snapping, ready to defend herself. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

“Didn’t have to.” That irritating, superior smirk. “You’ve got some powerful friends. This is my house, you’re my guest. You’re safe here.” Genie-woman held up a gaily frosted cupcake, decorated with a single lit candle. “Make a wish.” 

Chloé wavered. This had to be too good to be true. Another trick, another trap.

“You only get one wish, Chloé. Make it a good one.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Genie-woman sighed. “I understand. I do. Really.” Reaching out, she lifted Chloé’s hand, placing the treat on her palm. “Don’t let the candle burn out. If that happens, your wish is gone. Forever.” The blue-skinned woman turned to leave, pausing. “Not everyone is your enemy. And you’re not alone unless that's what you really want.

Enjoy the party.”

Chloé locked eyes with the woman, and very deliberately blew out the candle. “I’m going to bed.”

Genie-woman smiled. “As you wish.”

Chloé swept past the woman, stomping up the stairs to the third floor, trying doors until she found one unlocked and unoccupied, slamming the door shut behind herself, leaning against it as the wave of loneliness and humiliation washed over her, tears spilling down her cheeks. Of course the wish had been a lie.

She stripped to her t-shirt and underwear, throwing her clothes on the floor, falling into the double bed, face buried in the pillow, screaming her frustration.

Chloé didn’t hear the door open, didn’t know she wasn’t alone until weight settled on the bed behind her.

“You okay, prime?”

“No! Stop it! You’re not her! She’s gone!”, Chloé howled. “You’re just another trick, another lie! God, I wish I was dead!”

“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that, prime!”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT! DON'T YOU DARE!!”

“Chloé, baby, please, look at me.” Quiet.

Chloé rolled over, glaring. Stared.

“No. You’re not real. You’re not here.”

Weight shifted. Soft lips met, fingers brushed back wisps of golden hair. “God, that was better than I imagined”, a sigh of contentment. “I've waited your entire life to do that.”

“How…?” Horrible confusion on Chloé’s face.

Trembling fingertips brushed away tears. “Sometimes, just sometimes, when two hearts have the same wish, it comes true.”

“But the Flecs…”

“Can’t touch me. Not here. Not tonight.”

“When you go back…”

A grin in the twilight, left hand raised, glowing green numbers. {69}

“I’m not going back.”


	15. The Judgement Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kiddos, this one is a roller coaster.

Chloé blinked, bleary-eyed, dry-mouthed, a dull headache throbbing quietly. Breeze stirred the mist-pale window sheers, fluttering slightly in the late morning sunlight, the disheveled top sheet draping over the curves of her legs, duvet pushed aside.

A comfortably warm presence filled the bed beside her.

Her reflection. Former reflection. Living. Breathing.

Comforting.

Spooned behind her…twin? Other self?, Chloé stared at the mirrored numbers in their twinned palms. Both numbers read {11}

A waking sigh. “Prime? You awake?” Quiet. Gentle.

“Yeah.” Nuzzling close to her neck.

“Umm, am I okay?”

Alarmed, Chloé leaned up on an elbow, faintly aware they were both quite naked beneath the sheet. “What’s wrong?!”

“I…feel kinda…a kind of ache, hollow, here", the golden-skinned doppelgänger indicated by placing Chloé’s hand on her bare midriff, just below her sternum.

Chloé let out a breath in relief. “That’s hunger, silly. When’s the last time you ate anything?”

“Ummm….” Embarrassment in the former reflection’s hesitation. “Well, uh, before now, I never really had the need, so…”

Chloé huffed, indignant. “How utterly ridiculous!”

Clambering pleasantly over her bed-mate, Chloé hurriedly dressed, not bothering to tie back her blonde hair. “Don’t you dare move! I'll go scrounge us some breakfast.”

Chloé returned a few minutes later, the light backpack she'd absconded with from the Village over one arm, bearing a paper plate in either hand as she backed through the door, hooking it shut with one foot. Her double was sitting up, legs under the bedclothes, but otherwise gloriously nude.

“All there was left was cold pizza. Ridiculous”, Chloé announced, handing over a plate, taking a seat on the bed, setting aside her own paper plate to remove two bottles of apple juice from her pack, watching as her duplicate took a bite out of her first actual meal, seeing the astonishment and joy as the intermingled flavours of slightly salty cheese, spiced tomato sauce, smoked ham, and sweet pineapple burst on her tongue.

Blue eyes burst wide.

“Oh. My. God…” Wolfish bites as Chloé’s replica tried to devour the bready wedge as quickly as possible, tears of delight trailing down her cheeks. “I didn’t… it’s so good!!”

“Slow down", Chloé grinned. “There’s so much better out there. Trust me.”

*-*-*

After a shared, giggling shower, both girls dressed out of what was in Chloé’s pack. An unexpected surprise, verging on shock were the faces peering out at them from the mirror.

“Please, please stay safe you two. Know you’re never, ever alone” the former denizen of the mirror dimension said softly, hand on the looking glass. “And be good to each other.” Chloé nodded agreement.

Hair done, a deftly applied touch of make-up, Chloé regarded her other self.

“You need a name.”

“I guess so?” A shaky breath, uncertain. Scared.

“How about…Alicia?”

“Alicia. Alicia Bourgeois. My name is Alicia Bourgeois. Pleased to meet you…” A pause. “That feels so… weird. Like…I’m really real. A real person. Me. Not just…oh God, that must sound awful, ungrateful.” Hesitation, doubt.

Chloé stepped close, embracing Alicia, a nuzzling kiss. “It’s not weird. Not really. Definitely not awful.” Whispered.

“Ridiculous?”

“Utterly.”

“Love me?”

“Utterly.”

“Me too.”

*-*-*

Alicia paused in the doorway, feeling the rush of the desicated wasteland breeze stirred by the passage of the Train. She swallowed hard, looking imploringly at Chloé, who held out her hand as she stood on the end platform.

“You can do it!”, Chloé nodded, encouraging.

“But…it’s the real world!”, Alicia hesitated. “It’s so…open!”

“We can’t stay here.”

“Why not?!”

Chloé held up her right hand. “We're so close to going home.”

“Your home!”

Chloé stepped into the doorway. “Our home. And I'm not going home alone. I…I need you, ‘Lishe.”

“I need you too!”, Alicia pleaded. “I’m just scared.”

Chloé smirked. “Scared. The girl who dared yell at me from her side of the mirror. A splinter who knew the risks and did it anyway.” A soft kiss. “Risk it again.”

“Cheat.”

“You knew I was a bitch.”

“My bitch.”

“Coming?”

A frown from Alicia. “Oui.”

Hand in hand, fingers intertwined, Chloé guided Alicia over the catwalk to the next door, trailed by the oddly silent Oh-One.

“You can do it", Chloé nodded at the brass vertical sine-wave door handles. “Whatever is on the other side, we face together.”

A deep breath to steady her nerves, and Alicia spun the door handles.

The Flecs were waiting for them.

*-*-*

Hustled alone into a detention cell, Chloé raged, screamed, kicked, pounded, pleaded, wept, begged.

Slept.

An indifferent sandwich on white bread and a juice box pretended to be food.

Chloé slept again. Broken. Defeated.

When the door opened, Chloé stared sullen defiance at the Flec. “Out”, thumb jerking over his shoulder.

Chloé shuffled down the narrow hallway, climbed the stairs that led to a small cubicle fenced with turned oak spindles, stained dark, gleaming softly with decades of hand waxing. An imposing wide desk faced her.

A tribunal.

She was on trial.

Chloé regarded her judges with open hostility: The Reverend Inquisitor Pursuivant. Oh-One (no surprise at that betrayal). Number Two.

Number Two lifted a sheet of pale heavy parchment and cleared her throat before speaking. “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois, you are hereby charged with the following: Incitement of Insurrection, Regicide, Breach of Contract, two counts, Assault Causing Bodily Harm, Uttering Threats, Uttering Death Threats, Inciting Riot, Assault Causing Indignity to a Person, and most importantly, Breach of the Barrier Accord.”

Weighted silence.

“How plead you?”

“What happens to Alicia?”

-click- “Passenger Chloé Bourgeois will answer to the charges”, Oh-One decreed.

“Not until I know where Alicia is!”

The Reverend Inquisitor Pursuivant spoke. “The witness will step forward", the crone commanded.

Alicia stepped into a small spotlight that appeared.

“What’s going to happen to her?”, Chloé demanded.

Number Two leaned forward. “As she is an innocent in this, depending on the outcome of this tribunal, the splinter now known as ‘Alicia' will be potentially transferred to live out her existence in the Village."

Chloé nodded. “Good enough.”

“Your plea, if you don’t mind”, Number Two nodded.

A deep breath from Chloé. “Not guilty. But responsible.”

Number Two blinked, legitimately surprised. “Do you wish to present any testimony or evidence at this time to support your plea?”

Chloé shook her head. “Non. The tin-can recorded everything that your using against me”, she stared defiantly at Oh-One.

-click- “This is a factual statement from the Defendant Chloé Bourgeois.”

“You are aware that a verdict finding you guilty may result in your death?”, inquired the Reverend Inquisitor Pursuivant.

“As long as Alicia goes free, it doesn’t matter what you do to me", Chloé shrugged. “Maybe it’ll be justice for all the harm I did in my life…”

“You let her go!!”, Alicia bellowed. “She never did anything to you!! You don’t known the hell her life has been! I DO!!”

-click- “The witness will be silent.”

“ ‘Lishe, it’s alright”, Chloé said quietly. “I’m a fuck-up. You... You’re special. Innocent, your whole life ahead of you--"

“And nothing without you, Chlo!”, Alicia pleaded. “We're in it together. To the end!!”

A gleam of steel at Alicia's throat. Chloé paled.

“No, baby…please!”

“I’m literally nothing without you, Chloé!!” Desperate.

Chloé’s gaze swung desperately from Alicia to the tribunal. “Please.”

“You would die for each other?”

Frightened but determined nods, for different reasons.

“Would you live for each other?”

Chloé sobbed, falling to her knees. “Yes!!”

The sound of a razor-sharp nail file clattering to the floor. “Yes. A thousand, a million times yes! Just let her go!”

-click- “Chloé and Alicia Bourgeois, you may disembark the Train.”

The gate to the Defendant box swung open, Chloé stumbling to her feet, running to wrap Alicia in a fierce, protective embrace. “Don’t you ever, ever do anything that utterly stupid ever again! Do you hear me?!”

Alicia sobbed into Chloé’s shoulder, nodding frantically. “I’m so sorry! I was so scared!”

“We’re going home.”

“Uh-huh.”

Chloé looked at her palm, the numbers blurring, reeling. Stopping.

{0}

“Look at your hand, ‘Lishe.”

A matching {0}

Golden lines of energy speared upward from the floor of the courtroom, meeting to form the glowing arched outline of familiar double doors, the sine-wave handles turning on their own, the fabric of the Train's singularly illogical reality parting.

Chloé took a deep breath.

“Time to go.”

Holding hands tightly, Chloé and Alicia left the Train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You *know* there's going to be an epilogue...


	16. Epilogue

Marinette DuPain-Chang leaned on the sales counter of her parent’s boulangerie, bored and more than a little frustrated, chin propped up in the palm of her hand, staring out the plate glass window as the world passed by.

Her parents had announced they were taking a long overdue and definitely well-deserved Saturday off that would culminate in a spa visit and overnight stay at Le Grand Paris Hotel. Adding to Marinette’s discomfiture, her best friend Alya was unavailable due to a previous commitment to her long-term love interest Nino, now well known in the Paris underground dance scene as DJ Shelz. Luka, Marinette’s on-again, off-again…something…was playing lead guitar with Kitty Section in Calais. Adrian, as usual, had a modelling photo-shoot, followed up by a date with his Japanese girlfriend, Kagami.

Marinette was so bored she almost wished that dreadful nuisance Papillion would unleash a barrage of akumas. Almost.

In the street, Marinette could hear a young woman enthusiastically serenading the passing public in the late afternoon Paris sunlight, unashamed, uninhibited.

Movement just outside the door which was suddenly thrown wide, a blur of spinning dance-step ending in a single arm-raised flourish, the voice singing, “Ooooooh, She’s a little bit Dangerous…!!”

Classic black leather biker jacket. Tight imported blue-jeans with the knees carefully, fashionably gaping holes to expose toned, honey-kissed skin. White t-shirt with a printed sketch of a strutting raven in profile, it's wings spread, head thrown back in riotous abandon, a simple word balloon proudly proclaiming ‘Bollocks!’. Black canvas high-top sneakers.

“Chloé?!”

Silky blonde hair in a high ponytail above a shaved undercut. Cornflower blue eyes shining happiness.

“CHLOÉ??!!”

A genuine grin of pleasure at seeing Marinette.

“Hiya, baker girl!!”

Marinette responded in the only reasonable manner possible.

She fainted.

*-*-*

Some dismal minutes later, Marinette was staring at her long-ago rival over the rim of a glass of water, not believing the honest concern on Chloé’s face.

“Where the hell have you been?!”, Marinette demanded. “More than a year and a half since you vanished without a trace, and you literally waltz back into my life without warning!!”

Chloé actually looked chagrined, hand on the back of her neck. “Umm…that's…incredibly complicated.”

“Chloé!!”

“I was…travelling…finding myself I guess. In more ways than one.”

“No phone calls! No messages! Not a word to your parents, not even a post card! Sabrina still cries if we mention your name! How could you?! How dare you?!”

Chloé stared at the floor, out the shop windows, weathering Marinette’s deserved scorn, embarrassed.

“You have every right to yell at me, to be mad at me", Chloé responded reasonably. “I was selfish and inconsiderate of others.”

It took every ounce of self-control Marinette possessed to not slap Chloé. She paced behind the counter, two steps, back and forth. Seething.

“You—You had half the city searching for you!! Your father beside himself with worry, calling Sabrina’s father day and night, demanding, threatening that he do something! Goddamnit, I was taken in for questioning more than once because of our personal history!”, Marinette railed, incensed. “My parents were mortified!! Lila had a fucking field day whispering that I’d killed you and sold you off as dog biscuits!”

Chloé gaped, astounded. Offended. “Lila. Did. WHAT?!”

“DOG BISCUITS!!”, Marinette screamed. “And now, here you are, not so much as a by-your-leave, you stroll back in to cause more fucking drama!!”

Chloé suddenly yanked Marinette into a bone-crushing hug. “I’m sorry.”

“…wut…?”

“I’m so sorry for being such an utter, unforgivable bitch to you.”

Marinette regarded her former classmate very dubiously. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Chloé?”

“I got my ass kicked. Several times. Starting with you.”

“Chloé, let go of me and tell me what the hell is going on.”

Chloé nodded, releasing Marinette. “Okay. But there’s something I need to tell you, and I need you to promise you’re not going to freak out.”

“When have I ever freaked out?!”

Chloé raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Marinette huffed, annoyed. “Fine.”

The blonde eyebrow didn’t shift.

“Alright. I promise not to freak out”, Marinette agreed. “But if you suddenly profess you’re in love with me, out you go.”

“Magic exists. It’s real. You know it, I know it”, Chloé stated simply.

Marinette…twitched. “Uhhh…are you feeling okay?”

“Never better…”, Chloé gently smirked. “Bugaboo.”

Silence. 

“It’s time for you to leave, Chloé.”

“No.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.”

“This isn’t a game!”, Marinette hissed. “People can get hurt! Oh, I forgot! The Great Chloé Bourgeois is so far above the common crowd, consequences don’t affect her!”, Marinette dramatized to an unseen audience.

Chloé hitched herself up to sit on the counter, shoulders slumped, forlorn. “I know people got hurt because of me. Too many, too many times. I hurt you. Horribly.” She looked away. “You…”

Chloé paused, fidgeting. “At least you never…”

Marinette realized that something was seriously wrong for Chloé’s demeanor to shift so suddenly.

“Chloé”, Marinette prompted gently. “What happened?”

Chloé thumped herself hard on the thigh. Once, twice, three times. “Goddamnit, I’m not going to cry! Not now!”, she sniffled, then stared at Marinette, eyes haunted. “I killed someone. Because I was too fucking proud and stupid to walk away!”

Marinette's hand covered her mouth in horror.

“It happened on that fucking Train! I was on that Train the whole time I was gone!”, Chloé sobbed. “And I missed you! I missed you! And Sabrina, and Alya, Adrian, even stupid Nino! I missed all of you!”

“Oh, Chloé…”

“I figured it out, I figured it all out!”, Chloé howled. “And I’m sorry!!”

Chloé hopped off the counter, wiping angrily at her tears. “I gotta go. ‘Lishe will be getting worried…”

A gentle hand on her shoulder made Chloé stop.

“Who’s ‘Lishe?”

“Alicia. She’s the reason I’m still alive. My girlfriend. More than my girlfriend.”

Marinette initiated the tight hug this time, surprising both of them. “Oh, Chloé, Chloé, Chloé, you’re so messed up…”

“I know, Bugaboo, I know.”

“Ugh. That sounds so weird coming from you.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to my fucked-up life.”

“You can’t ever tell anyone.”

Chloé wiped aside a stray tear. “Duh.”

Sounds of crunching metal in the distance. Screams. Alarms clanging, shrieking.

“Now?! Are you kidding me?!”, Marinette growled.

“Go.”

“I can’t!”

“You can. Get!”

Marinette’s distress was palpable. “But the bakery--"

“Will be fine, I’ll guard it with my life”, Chloé grinned. “No way am I letting some shitty akuma damage my favorite bakery! I'll call Alicia for backup. She’s hanging out on the carousel in the park.”

The decision was made. Marinette trusted Chloé. “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t. Go. Say ‘hi' to the rest of the gang if they show up.”

Marinette dashed up the stairs. “Don’t you dare leave! We are so going to talk!”

Chloé grinned, leaning on the counter, powering up her phone to call Alicia, popping a raspberry macaron from a display into her mouth. 

“Go kick some ass, Bugaboo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go. Another one draws to a close.
> 
> Y'all have been great, tagging along for the ride. Your kudos and comments greatly appreciated always.


End file.
